David Lynch’s cause of death has been revealed

8 February, 2025

David Lynch

David Lynch‘s cause of death has been revealed.

The beloved late director’s death was announced by his family on social media earlier this year (January 16) – he was aged 78. Lynch, who is celebrated for films like Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and the iconic TV series Twin Peaks, revealed his emphysema diagnosis last year, which was caused by smoking for most of his life. In November, he shared that he required supplemental oxygen to walk.

It was speculated that the LA wildfires had affected his health, with anonymous sources telling Deadline his health took a turn for the worse after he was forced to evacuate from his home along Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Now, TMZ has reported that the Eraserhead director died as a result of cardiac arrest, with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease cited as the underlying cause. The document obtained by the publication, a death certificate released by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on Friday (February 7), also cited dehydration as a significant factor.

David Lynch
Lynch looking through Panavision Panaflex movie camera as he directs filming of Wild at Heart on street location. CREDIT:  Acey Harper/Getty Images)

After Lynch passed, his family broke the news the following day, writing on his Facebook page: “There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole’. It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way”.

They were later forced to deny claims swirling social media about a funeral service featuring Lynch’s close friends and collaborators like Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern. “I have heart that people are flying in for this, and I feel this is so wrong of someone to post this kind of crap,” they wrote. “It’s hurtful. Please complain to whomever is posting these lies.”

Tributes have poured in from all over the entertainment industry since Lynch’s passing. Legendary director Steven Spielberg described him as “an original and unique voice”, recalling their work together on The Fabelmans.

Among the other celebrities to have paid tribute to Lynch are Dern, Nicolas Cage, Edgar Wright, James Gunn, Hugh Jackman, Billy Corgan, Questlove – you can see more tributes here.

Lynch’s fans, too, were quick to pay tribute to him, with some holding a “worldwide group meditation” in his honour, while figures in the gaming industry have also posted about the director’s influence on some of the most popular games in history.

In NME’s tribute to the late director, Mark Beaumont wrote that the “very word ‘Lynchian’ – denoting a kind of carnivalesque dark surrealism; sometimes fantastical, sometimes macabre, sometimes dreamlike, often eerily everyday – will forever pay tribute to the work of one of cinema’s finest ever auteurs.”

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