Rumors That Mamas & Papas’ Singer Cass Elliott Died by Ham Sandwich Still Plague Family 50+ Years After Her Death

The death of the legendary Mamas & Papas singer sent shockwaves across the world on July 29, 1974.

No one was more shocked, however, than the people closest to Cass Elliot. Those who knew and loved her were in disbelief at the news that Elliot had died at age 32. 

Elliot died of a heart attack that, in the aftermath of her death, many would suspect was related to substance abuse and dangerous dieting techniques. At the time, however, rumors went rampant that the singer died after choking on a ham sandwich.

Friend Sue Cameron previously told PEOPLE about the first time she’d heard that story, having called Elliot’s apartment after hearing the news.

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“Her manager, Allan Carr, picked up the phone, and he was hysterical. Allan said, ‘You’ve got to tell them that she died choking on a ham sandwich. You must go to your typewriter and write that. There’s a half of a ham sandwich on her nightstand.’ ”

“I didn’t ask any questions,” Cameron, then a columnist at The Hollywood Reporter, shared. She later elaborated on the experience and the story behind the rumor in her 2018 book Hollywood Secrets and Scandals. “I knew she didn’t choke on a ham sandwich. I didn’t believe Allan, but I thought just do it because something was wrong.”

“The ham sandwich went worldwide,” Cameron told PEOPLE. “Many people don’t realize that it’s not even true. Even though I have said — and written — it’s not true, it still goes on. I never thought it would last as long as it has.”

An autopsy revealed Elliot had died of a heart attack; No drugs were found in her system, but there was still talk of substance abuse in her inner circle.

On the day Elliot died, Cameron wrote her obituary and then rushed to the singer’s house.

“The gates were open. The front door was unlocked. I just went there to protect anything because sometimes, on the day a famous person dies, people try to get into the house. Something in my head told me to go upstairs. Why lie about a ham sandwich? So I went up to her bedroom and looked in the cabinets, and it was completely cleaned out,” Cameron says.

“Many years later, I was a guest at a party, and there was a well-known model from that era [there]. Somehow, the topic of Cass came up, and she said, ‘I was the one who was there and cleaned out the drugs.’ It was odd because it was 30 years later. I must have arrived right after her.”

For Elliot’s daughter, Owen Elliot-Kugell, the rumor has been an ugly and painful stain on the singer’s legacy. In her 2024 memoir My Mama, Cass, Elliot-Kugell shared her hatred for the rumor.

“In my younger years, when people would talk to me about my mom, it was always about the stupid sandwich,” she told PEOPLE.

“I would go over to kids’ houses after school and eventually one of their parents would ask me ‘Did your mom really die choking on a ham sandwich?’ First of all, the chutzpah to say that to a child is just crazy but it happened a lot. So I felt it was my duty to figure out what that story was all about.”

It was through this process that Elliot-Kugell learned Carr was hoping to offset any other rumors that might arise, especially about drugs, by sharing that detail with Cameron.

After learning the story’s origin, Elliot-Kugell began to see things in a different light.

“So many of my mother’s peers had died from drug overdoses — Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison. And I think Allan was afraid they’d make the same assumption,” she says.

“I really believe they were protecting her legacy. And they were trying to protect me. And in a weird way, I’m grateful for that crazy story. As much as it caused me grief, and people made jokes, I now realize it kept her relevant and ready to shine again.”