There were a lot of unknowns when he died and the family blocked the coroner’s autopsy. “It was also international news and was all over CNN. “It was obviously huge news in the surf industry,” Todd Jones, the co-director of Andy Irons: Kissed by God, tells InsideHook. He had been returning home to Hawaii from a surfing competition in Puerto Rico.Ī months-delayed autopsy revealed the surfing star had died from a combination of a heart attack and drugs in his system, including medications for his bipolar disorder as well as cocaine, methamphetamine and methadone. The comeback was short-lived, though: that same fall, Irons was found dead in a Texas hotel room at the age of 32. Irons went through manic highs and depressive lows during his meteoric rise to stardom, eventually quitting the tour in 2008 and sitting out the entire 2009 season before making a comeback in 2010.
He suffered from bipolar disorder, which had been diagnosed by his family doctor when he was 18 but not made public until later. Eventually, he realized he was good enough to go pro, and quickly became one of the surf world’s fiercest competitors, winning three straight World Championship Tour titles from 2002 to 2004.Īs talented as he was, all was not always well with Irons. Andy Irons, a native of Kauai, began surfing some of the most dangerous waves on earth at a very young age.