Ace Frehley cause of death

Photo Credit: Ace Frehley in 2011 by Kevin Soney / CC by 2.0

KISS legend Ace Frehley’s cause of death has been revealed less than a month after his family announced the 74-year-old’s passing.

Legendary KISS guitarist Ace Frehley’s cause of death has been revealed three weeks after his family announced his passing at the age of 74. The Morris County Medical Examiner’s Office in New Jersey reports the KISS co-founder died from blunt force trauma to the head following a fall in his home studio in late September.

The official report states that he sustained a skull fracture at the back of his head, a subdural hematoma—a pool of blood between the brain and its outer protective layer—and a stroke. His death has been classified as accidental.

Frehley reportedly collapsed in his home studio on September 25, hitting his head in a frightening fall that saw him hospitalized. Lori Lousararian, Frehley’s rep, told Rolling Stone that the musician’s health had deteriorated since the fall, and he was on a ventilator for several days. He cancelled all remaining tour dates in the days leading up to his death.

“In his last moments, we were fortunate enough to have been able to surround him with loving, caring, peaceful words, thoughts, prayers, and intentions as he left this earth,” Frehley’s family said in the announcement that he had passed on October 16. “The magnitude of his passing is of epic proportions, and beyond comprehension.”

Known to generations of KISS fans as the band’s Spaceman, Ace Frehley helped define the band’s signature sound and persona during their early days after they formed in 1973. Though he left the band in 1982, he would reunite with them several times until 2002, and would continue to be remembered for the indelible mark left on rock history.

“He is and will always be a part of KISS’s legacy,” said Frehley’s former bandmates, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, calling him an “essential and irreplaceable rock soldier during some of the most formative foundational chapters of the band.”

The original KISS ensemble—Frehley, singer/guitarist Stanley, bass player Simmons, and drummer Peter Criss—was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.