Barbara Bush. Avicii. Now Verne Troyer. It’s been a bad week for…people.
Verne Troyer, who played “Mini Me” in the Austin Powers films, died today, April 21st. No cause has been given, however, Troyer was said to be “extremely upset, drunk and suicidal” a few weeks ago. Back in early April, he was taken to a hospital for possible alcohol poisoning. Evidently, that was a preview of things to come.
According to TMZ, since then, he’s been on life support. Yeesh. He was also baptized following that which wasn’t a good sign either.
His people posted the sad news on Instagram.
It is with great sadness and incredibly heavy hearts to write that Verne passed away today.
Verne was an extremely caring individual. He wanted to make everyone smile, be happy, and laugh. Anybody in need, he would help to any extent possible. Verne hoped he made a positive change with the platform he had and worked towards spreading that message everyday.
They also mention this:
Depression and Suicide are very serious issues. You never know what kind of battle someone is going through inside. Be kind to one another. And always know, it’s never too late to reach out to someone for help.
That gives the idea that Troyer was battling some serious issues. Unfortunately, he couldn’t fight through them.
Troyer’s greatest claim to fame was Mini Me in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and its sequel, Austin Powers in Goldmember. Those released back in 1999 and 2002 respectively. Since then, he hadn’t had any roles even close in stature to those movies. He reunited with Mike Myers aka Austin Powers on The Love Guru in 2008, but that kinda sucked.
He landed on Celebrity Big Brother where producers forced him to dress up as a bear and eat honey. That’s not how you treat Mini Me.
We also nearly missed out on one of his greatest acting turns. His star turn playing himself in the Verne Troyer sex tape. TMZ had posted a clip of him tonguing his girlfriend Ranae Shrider which presumably led to Mini Me’s Mini Me coming out, but Troyer, unlike so many of these sex tape celebs, didn’t want the tape out. He sued TMZ for $20 million and the sex tape distributor SugarDVD for violating his privacy rights and trademark and copyright infringement. He eventually dropped the suit when SugarDVD agreed to never release it.
However, since Shrider ok’d the parts that TMZ released, they were still allowed to put up about 22 seconds of it.
Since these things leak, the full video is out there. Obviously, it’s very NSFW, the site is NSFW and only click through to Verne Troyer’s sex tape if you wanna see Mini Me perched atop his lady and giving her the business.
Honestly, this whole news is sad, but we should celebrate his life. Troyer was born with achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism. Yet, he made it in Hollywood, where even the most genetically gifted actors and actresses get turned down on a daily basis. He overcame the odds, made a career for himself and powered through one of the toughest industries out there. He should be revered for that. RIP Verne.