WWE superstar Bray Wyatt wasn't wearing a doctor-recommended heart defibrillator and described as "turning blue" when he suffered a fatal heart attack last Thursday (August 24), law enforcement records obtained by TMZ Sports confirmed.
Wyatt, 36, whose real name was Windham Rotunda, told his fiancée, former WWE ring announcer Jojo Offerman, that he was going to take a nap before she found him not breathing and turning blue after his alarm went off without stopping about an hour later. Offerman called 911 while her mother attempted to perform CPR on Rotunda, who was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
Rotunda's immediate family members told police that the wrestler had been diagnosed with COVID-19 in March and developed heart complications, which resulted in him having a "weak lower part of his heart," records obtained by TMZ Sports stated. The 36-year-old was reported to have been hospitalized for a heart issue one week prior to his death and advised by doctors to continue wearing an external heart defibrillator -- designed to treat patients experiencing cardiac arrest -- during a follow-up appointment.
Investigators determined that Rotunda wasn't wearing the defibrillator, which was instead located inside a vehicle parked in his driveway at the time of his death, though it's undetermined whether the device would've saved his life.
Rotunda's death came days after reports that his lengthy absence from WWE television was due to a was dealing with a life threatening illness but was expected to be nearing a return. Rotunda is one of WWE's biggest superstars of the past decade. The third-generation wrestler initially debuted as Husky Harris on the reality show version of NXT and later as a member of the group Nexus before later becoming a mainstay was Bray Wyatt, a cult leader-esque character flanked by Eric Rowan and the late Luke Harper -- also known as Brodie Lee in All Elite Wrestling and other promotions -- as part of the Wyatt Family.
Rotunda would go through several notable incarnations of the character, which later included repackaging himself as a Mr. Rogers-esque host of 'Firefly Funhouse' vignettes as a split personality to 'The Fiend,' a much darker character than he had played previously.
The 36-year-old was among numerous -- and arguably the most surprising of the -- wrestlers released by the company during the COVID-19 pandemic in July 2021 before making his return in October 2022, having only wrestled one televised match at the 2023 Royal Rumble prior to his death.
Rotunda was a third-generation wrestler through his father and maternal grandfather, the late Blackjack Mulligan.
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