HOFFMAN’S LAST DAZE: A Tragic Missed Text, A Drug Deal, A Shambolic Flight Home and Being Mistaken for a Homeless Person

It was the last message Philip Seymour Hoffman ever sent – an 8.58pm text on Saturday to his good friend David Katz asking if he just wanted to come over and catch the Knicks game on television.

Katz missed it, then his own 11.30pm text back to the Oscar winner went unanswered.

The next morning, Katz discovered his friend slumped on the floor of his bathroom – dead from an apparent heroin overdose at 46-years-old.

The penultimate message Hoffman sent at 8.44pm read, ‘you wanna watch the second half of the knick heat game at Bethune,’ revealed Katz to the New York Times.

At 8.58pm, Hoffman, keen for company, wrote another message, ‘like 10:15.’

Katz was at a restaurant and did not text back at the time. At 11.30pm he sent, ‘just got out of dinner. Where r u?’ to Hoffman. The actor did not write back.

Piecing his final days together, it becomes clear that Hoffman’s spiral into the throes of addiction was rapid and distressing for his family and even strangers who mistook the multi-millionaire for a homeless person.

Indeed, Hoffman’s last days were ominously preceded by his bare confession that he was ‘a heroin addict’ at the Sundance Film Festival to a magazine publisher he did not know.

Returning to New York City after promoting his films God’s Pocket and A Most Wanted Man at the January 19 meeting, Hoffman settled back into a rented $10,000 a month apartment on Bethune Street.