Fox 8: Cass Elliot’s daughter tells the truth about her death in new book ‘My Mama, Cass’

(WJW) – Cass Elliot’s daughter is telling the truth about her mother’s death in a new book, set to release this month.

In her new book, “My Mama, Cass,” Cass Elliot’s daughter Owen Elliot-Kugell talks about dealing with the jokes about the rumor of her mom’s cause of death.

The legendary Mamas & Papas singer died on July 29, 1974, in London from a heart attack at age 32. Her daughter was just 7 years old at the time.

Nearly 50 years after her death Elliot-Kugell said she has had to put up with jokes and the rumor that her mom had died after choking on a ham sandwich. 

According to a recent PEOPLE interview, Elliot-Kugell said, “In my younger years, when people would talk to me about my mom, it was always about the stupid sandwich. 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.”

While writing the book, Elliot-Kugell spoke to some of her mother’s peers, including Elliot’s close friend and former Hollywood Reporter columnist Sue Cameron, who started the rumor that Elliot had died from choking on a ham sandwich in her book Hollywood Secrets and Scandals.

According to PEOPLE, Cameron said when she went to Elliot’s London apartment to check on the singer’s manager Allan Carr, he told her, “Just say she died choking on the sandwich,” after seeing a half-eaten sandwich on the nightstand. 

According to PEOPLE, their goal at the time was to offset any rumors to come about drugs.

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

Cass Elliot was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 along with her bandmates Denny Doherty, John Phillips and Michelle Phillips.