The Saddest Things In The Life Of River Phoenix

On October 31, 1993, River had done a speedball — a mixture of a couple of drugs — and became violently ill while at The Viper Room. The Viper Room was a club owned by actor and friend, Johnny Depp. River’s siblings, Rain and Joaquin, were at the club when he began having a seizure. River was taken outside, and Joaquin called 911. Rain threw herself on top of River’s body to try to stop his seizure. He lost consciousness and passed shortly thereafter. He was 23 years old.

River’s parents were missionaries for the cult Children of God. The cult later became infamous for its seedy practices, and its abuse of children. The family left the cult while River was still young.

“The Children of God was a Christian [pleasure] cult. They believed that [sleeping with someone] was a sacrament, and that sort of everyone should be engaged in it. And this, you know, extended to sort of partner swapping, and it also extended to encouraging children to, you know, engage with each other,” Gavin Edwards said, author of Last Night at the Viper Room.  Edwards went on to say that children were encouraged to play with their parents and stimulate each other.

The actor himself said that he first “made love” when he was 4 years old, in an interview with Details magazine. “But, I’ve blocked it out,” he added. “I was completely celibate from 10 to 14.”

River’s parents belonged to the Children of God, a cult that became notorious for several reasons. His parents, Arlyn and John Bottom, were strapped for money as they traveled across the United States and South America with the cult. For a while, the family settled in Venezuela where the cult set up camp. The children sang on the streets for extra money.

“At an early age, River was busking on street corners, trying to spread the word and proselytize for the cult. But if he didn't bring home enough loose change that day, the family wasn't going to eat,” said Gavin Edwards, author of Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind, in an interview with NPR. “So, it was a lot of weight in a lot of different ways, on a very young child.”

When the family resettled in LA, the children kept up their street performing and that is how River was discovered.  

Maybe because of River’s childhood in The Children of God, he developed a strange obsession with hooking up.

“[Sleeping with someone] was nearly all that River could think about,” Corey Feldman said. "He decided it was time to lose his self-imposed 'second-virginity,' and get on with his first teen encounter." River decided to lose it to this older girl he knew, and strangely enough, he asked his parents for permission. Instead of just saying yes, his parents put a tent in the backyard for their son to get it on in, and they decorated it to enhance the mood.  River was 15 years old at the time.

River’s drug use was far more indulgent than he had let on. He gave off the impression of a child of hippies, but he was spiraling downwards into dangerous drug use. His friend, Bob Forrest of punk band Thelonious Monster, recalled the cycle of drug use that he and their friends would run through on a regular basis.

“The drug routine stayed pretty consistent for all of us. First, smoke crack or shoot coke directly into a vein for that ninety-second, electric brain-bell jangle,” Forrest said. “Then shoot heroin to get a grip and come down enough to be able to carry on a conversation for a few minutes before you start the cycle again.”

A few days before The Viper Room incident, River been hanging out with Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Guitarist, John Frusciante, and had not slept. Bob recalls when he saw River at The Viper Room that Halloween night in 1993, he was looking extremely sick. When he asked River how he was, River responded, “I don’t feel so good. I think I’m OD’ing.”

River knew fellow child actor, Corey Feldman from the audition circuits in LA, but the two didn’t become friends until their landmark film Stand By Me. River and Feldman first got involved with drugs and alcohol on the set of that film. This path ultimately proved fatal for River, and it nearly destroyed Feldman’s life as well. A technician on the set of the film offered them their first hit of pot.

"We both coughed a lot and had sore throats,” Feldman said. “But even though we were kind of bouncing off the walls of the hotel, neither of us seemed to be affected by it. It didn't change our state of mind in any way."

River also recalled the first time he got drunk after some local kids in Oregon (the setting for Stand By Me) offered to buy him beer:

"These kids, because this was Oregon and not LA, and because we were actors and they admired us or whatever, they'd do anything to appease us. So, they got me a forty-ouncer of beer, which I drank straight down just to show them,” River said. “The only other thing I remember about that night was laying on the railroad tracks with everything spinning all around me."