UPDATE (08/12/22): Anne Heche passed away Friday afternoon, according to The Guardian, one week after news broke she had careened her vehicle into a Los Angeles home, engulfing her Mini Cooper in flames.
Actor Anne Heche is “not expected to survive,” the family said, after a fiery crash in Los Angeles.
In a statement shared with ABC News, loved ones of the Emmy-winning celebrity said she is comatose following the severe crash, which left her with significant brain damage.
Close friends of the “Six Days, Seven Nights” star reportedly said they fear the mother of two will likely die from smoke inhalation after careening her Mini Cooper into a house at 90 mph while “high on cocaine” last Friday, according to the Daily Mail.
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“She is in a terrible condition,” an unnamed friend told the outlet. “The smoke inhalation is life threatening. It will be a miracle if she recovers from this and comes out of this coma. She needs everyone’s prayers. She is in the worst state you can imagine. Whatever you believe in, please pray for her, please.”
“Only God can save her now,” added the friend.
Immediately after Heche sped into the house, a fire ignited. It took 59 firefighters 65 minutes to “access, confine, and fully extinguish the stubborn flames,” a press release stated.
Video footage from a neighbor’s Ring doorbell showed a blue Mini Cooper owned by Heche speeding down the residential road just moments before the four-door vehicle crashed into a house.
The 53-year-old actor’s representative said she “has a significant pulmonary injury requiring mechanical ventilation and burns that require surgical intervention.”
Heche’s deadly crash into the Los Angeles home owned by Lynne Mishele came shortly after a previous, less serious crash into a garage door. It appeared at the time she had alcohol in the vehicle.
While it’s not clear when the audio was recorded, Heche did say on an episode of her “Better Together” podcast released the morning of the fiery collision that she was having a “very bad day” and had been drinking vodka and wine. That episode has since been removed from Apple Podcasts.
Although details of the well-known celebrity’s faith are unclear, Heche’s mother, Nancy, has been very open about her Christian beliefs amid life’s tragedies.
In 2006, she authored an autobiographical book, “The Truth Comes Out,” in which she chronicled the death of her husband Don, who died of AIDS after numerous homosexual affairs — a dark secret for years shrouded by the lie that he had died of cancer. The elder Heche opens up, too, about her own affairs as well as the tragic death of two of her children: Cynthia Anne Heche, who lived only for two months, and Nathan Heche, who died in a car crash at just 18 years old, three months after Don’s death.
Years later, Nancy Heche struggled when Anne Heche made headlines for her affair with actor and comedian Ellen DeGeneres. At the time, Nancy Heche said her daughter’s involvement with the daytime talk show host felt like “a betrayal,” according to CBN.
Nancy Heche, who abandoned her faith for seven years before finding her way back to Christianity, has worked with several ministries — including Ruth Graham and Friends and Focus on the Family — to advocate for a biblical understanding of human sexuality.
Now 85 years old, Nancy Heche has spent many years talking to Christians about the importance of showing love toward those who practice LGBT lifestyles while also explaining how Scripture addresses the issue.
“People will be won to Christ exactly the same way we were won to Christ,” she told the Christian Examiner in 2007. “That’s someone showing us love. That’s even more important than if they change their sexual orientation. The truth is, their sexual orientation or sexual practices will not change unless they do experience the love of Christ.”
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