DJ AM, Star Disc Jockey, Found Dead

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

Published: August 28, 2009

DJ AM, a high-profile disc jockey who was as famous for his much-chronicled relationships as he was for his creative scratching and mixing on the celebrity club circuit, was found dead on Friday evening in his apartment in Manhattan, the police said.

The police said his body was found in his seventh-floor apartment in SoHo about 5:30 p.m. after friends had tried unsuccessfully to reach him for days. The chief police spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the police did not suspect foul play.

DJ AM, 36, whose real name was Adam Goldstein, was discovered face-down in his bed wearing only sweatpants, with a crack pipe and unspecified prescription drugs nearby, an official said.

Emergency workers had to break down the door to get in after one of the friends who had been trying to reach Mr. Goldstein called 911 on Friday.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2007, Mr. Goldstein said he drank heavily, used cocaine and smoked crack in his early 20s, reaching his lowest point when he attempted suicide in 1997. But he also said he had cleaned up his life — including having gastric bypass surgery after his weight ballooned to 324 pounds — and had managed to stay sober for nine years.

“At my core I am a glutton, so I’ve had to learn everything in moderation,” he said at the time.

In October, The Associated Press reported, MTV was to begin his new reality show, “Gone Too Far,” in which he and concerned families staged interventions for drug abusers.

He also survived a plane crash a year ago that nearly killed him.

A native of Philadelphia, Mr. Goldstein was known for his “mash up” style of spinning, in which he jumped across various genres and eras to combine songs from artists as different as Jay-Z and Journey.

He had been a familiar figure on the Los Angeles club circuit since the 1990s, but it was his highly publicized relationships with Nicole Richie and other starlets in recent years that earned him B-list stardom. He was featured in an episode of “Entourage” on HBO, and he commanded fees in the tens of thousands of dollars to spin at nightclubs in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York.

In 2006, he presided at a party during Super Bowl XL in Detroit that was attended by three generations of the Henry Ford family.

Mr. Goldstein was seriously injured Sept. 19, in the crash of a Learjet 60 plane in Columbia, S.C. The crash killed four people and injured Travis Barker, a musician and former drummer of the group Blink-182, with whom Mr. Goldstein frequently appeared. On Friday night, throngs of friends and fans gathered outside Mr. Goldstein’s apartment building at 210 Lafayette Street. Many described him as a friendly and approachable man who was serious about his music and who always stopped to talk to fans who recognized him. Mr. Goldstein regularly posted messages on Twitter, including one final, poetic note — lyrics from a Grandmaster Flash song — that he posted on Tuesday.

“New York, New York. Big city of dreams, but everything in New York ain’t always what it seems.”