Fat Shaming & Drug Abuse: Inside Mama Cass Elliot's Sad Days Before Death

The initial story of Mama Cass Elliot dying after choking on a ham sandwich in bed, was hard to shake, and eventually became an urban legend following the July 29, 1974 tragedy.

"It was latched onto by the press: 'a star who was famous for their weight, therefore must have died in relation to eating,'" Biographer Eddi Fiegel says in REELZ's new Autopsy: Mama Cass Elliot teaser.

"Whoever wrote that… is just a schmuck," adds another source.

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"I think this is, you know, a small glimpse of what she went through throughout her life: this kind of fat shame: she was a fat girl, she ate too quickly, she was a glutton, she chocked,' and it's really sad that all these years later it's still something that has become the mythology around this amazingly talented young woman," continues Psychologist Linda Papadopoulos in the clip.

After investigating into Cass' death, the media began to speculate that her history of dieting had caused her heart to fail. They also suggested her history of drug abuse and her lifelong struggle with obesity may have had something to do with her untimely death.