Michael Madsen died at 67 in July 2025
Credit: Virginia Madsen/Instagram
NEED TO KNOW
- Michael Madsen’s sister Virginia shared a memory of her late brother and wrote of her grief on Instagram more than 10 months after the actor died at 67
- Michael, known for his roles in a number of Quentin Tarantino movies, died of heart failure
- Virginia told PEOPLE in a January interview that she felt Michael was “no longer suffering” from addiction when he died
Virginia Madsen is sharing memories of her late brother Michael Madsen, more than 10 months after he died at 67 in July 2025.
On Friday, April 17, Virginia, 64, shared a black-and-white selfie to Instagram that she wrote she and Michael snapped in New York City in 2015, after she attended the premiere of her movie Joy and Michael attended the premiere for The Hateful Eight. Virginia noted in a caption to her post that it was the first time since 1992, when she and Michael's movies Candyman and Reservoir Dogs premiered at the same time.
"On the way back to the hotel, he told the driver to let us out quite suddenly. He wanted to walk. And so we did," Virginia wrote. "Late at night in Manhattan, talking about our kids. It is an unsteady hand that writes this now because time does not heal grief. Just allows the wind to change direction from time to time, melancholy nevertheless."
"I remember a book he loved. The last line reads, 'He would soon be borne away by the waves and lost in the darkness and distance.' There was comfort there for you," she added in her caption. "You are at peace now, I know. And I understand."
Michael was well known for appearing in a number of Quentin Tarantino's movies during a prolific acting career that began in 1982 and ended with his death in 2025. In the days following his death, a Los Angeles NBC affiliate reported that Madsen's cardiologist said he died from heart failure and listed heart disease and alcoholism as contributing factors. Michael's death came more than three years after his son Hudson died by suicide at 26 in 2022.
Virginia told PEOPLE that Michael "was bigger than life" in a January interview, as she reflected on his life and death while promoting her movie Sheepdog.
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"It was really hard to communicate with Michael during these last years because he really wasn’t communicating with anybody," she admitted, after noting that both Michael and his estranged wife DeAnna Madsen experienced "intense grief" following Hudson's death. (Michael and DeAnna also shared sons Calvin and Luke, and he shared sons Christian and Max with actress Jeannine Bisignano. Madsen filed for divorce from DeAnna in September 2024.)
Credit: Gregg DeGuire/WireImage
"And that addiction will do everything it can to separate loved ones from the person who’s suffering. He tried really hard over and over again until he just got farther and farther away," Virginia told PEOPLE in January.
"And it’s a terrible thing because you lose them while they’re still walking around alive. And so when he died, it wasn’t a surprise, and I suppose the only thing that was also a truth was that he was no longer in pain," she continued. "He was no longer suffering. It wasn’t another hospital. It wasn’t another accident. My mother, she’s 94, she felt a really strong sense that he was at peace.”
Michael died while several film projects he was involved in remained in various stages of development. He most recently appeared posthumously in the Prime Video movie Mr. Wonderful.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
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