Philip Seymour Hoffman's close friend says star's 'ghost' visited him the night he died - and reveals a secret blackmail plot haunted the actor

Just a fewer months earlier his decease from a heroin overdose, Oscar-winning character Philip Seymour Hoffman was blackmailed by a news website, which threatened to expose his astir friendly supplier maltreatment secrets.

In his caller book Feh (a Yiddish connection that intends ‘yuck’), Shalom Auslander reveals nan outlet had bought secretly recorded tapes of Hoffman talking frankly astir his addictions, and planned to people them unless he gave an exclusive interview. 

Hoffman said he couldn’t carnivore nan thought of his children - Cooper, who was 10 astatine nan time, and daughters Tallulah and Willa, 7 and 5 - proceeding him talk astir his habits. The thought that they’d beryllium mocked aliases shamed astatine schoolhouse astir their ‘pathetic father’ was horrifying to him. 

So, reluctantly, he agreed to nan interview. 

Auslander and Hoffman became beloved friends aft nan character had expressed an liking successful adapting Auslander’s novel Hope: A Tragedy. They bonded complete their akin upbringings and nan traumas near successful their aftermath - describing that shared consciousness of guilt and self-loathing arsenic ‘feh’.

And what began arsenic a moving narration became a adjacent friendship. Hoffman besides came connected committee for nan aviator of Auslander's TV bid HAPPYish, playing nan lead Thom Payne, a depressed, middle-aged imaginative head astatine a New York advertisement agency.

It was while moving connected nan aviator successful 2013 that Auslander received an unexpected telephone telephone from Hoffman successful nan mediate of nan night.

‘I was successful a half-sleep daze, trying to make consciousness of what he was saying, of what I was hearing, trying to put nan pieces of nan communicative together,' he writes.

‘He was expected to beryllium connected vacation, our extremity to commencement filming nan aviator erstwhile he returned.’

Hoffman apologized profusely to Auslander, explaining that nan logic for his absence was not that he had been connected picnic - but that he'd been successful rehab.

While attending group therapy sessions there, different diligent had secretly taped him, and sold nan recordings to a news website.

‘Phil explained that this was not an uncommon occurrence,’ writes Auslander. ‘People, to usage nan word loosely, motion into rehab centers successful nan hopes of secretly signaling celebrities and trading nan recordings to rumors magazines and websites.’   

After coming retired of rehab, he filmed nan aviator arsenic planned. But he was difficult connected set, recalls Auslander: ‘Belligerent, moody. His assemblage was detoxing, which caused nausea, swelling, pain.

‘I was successful afloat guilt mode, chastising myself for not having recognized nan signs of supplier maltreatment each on - nan sleepiness, nan canceled meetings, nan late-night unintelligible texts.

‘Still, complete nan adjacent weeks and months, John [Cameron Mitchell, nan director] someway managed to movie thing special, thing acheronian and funny and moving astir nan struggle for existent happiness successful a shallow, materialistic world.’

A fewer days aft nan last cut, Auslander - who grew up successful nan ultra-orthodox Jewish organization of Monsey, successful New York - met Hoffman for meal successful Manhattan. ‘He seemed better. He had mislaid weight,’ he noticed.

They discussed schedules, should nan show get green-lit, and planned to meet again to spell complete scripts.

As they went their abstracted ways, he recalls hugging him and saying, ‘for immoderate reason: “Don’t dice connected me".’

Hoffman threw backmost his caput and laughed: ‘That laughter caused nan shop signs to swing, and it group disconnected car alarms, and it filled nan streets of SoHo, and it traveled up to Midtown and it shook nan windows of nan buildings there, and it shook nan city, and it shook nan world, and I was judge that if I could laughter for illustration that, moreover erstwhile successful my life, I mightiness ne'er outcry again.’

The show received nan greenish ray nan adjacent day. Two days aft that, Auslander received nan telephone that his friend was dead.

The book doesn’t specify nan timeline, but Hoffman had been sober for 23 years earlier relapsing successful astir 2012/2013. He attended rehab doubly - coming retired for nan last clip successful November 2013.

He was recovered dead successful his New York flat connected February 2, 2014.

Auslander said astatine nan time: ‘This satellite is nary damned spot to person a heart, and Phil had nan biggest, brokenest bosom of anyone I person ever met. He was a beautiful personification successful a hideous world. Great actor, too.’

In nan book, he past describes an unnerving, supernatural acquisition nan nighttime Hoffman died, aft he and his woman Orli had celebrated nan bid being picked up.

‘I felt someone’s manus pat my enarthrosis - a dense hand, a lukewarm hand, a heavy hand,’ he writes. ‘I yelped, jumped astir - but cipher was there.

‘“You OK?” Orli had asked.

‘This was astir 2am, astir nan time, I would find retired nan adjacent morning, that Phil passed away.

‘It’s ridiculous, I know. It’s superstitious, it’s malarkey, it’s hocus-pocus… but I haven’t been capable to shingle it off. I cognize what I felt, and I felt it earlier I knew he had died.’

Thinking backmost to that feeling, he tries to ideate what benignant of connection that pat was trying to convey. Was it apologetic? Remorseful?

‘And astatine those times erstwhile nan acheronian engulfs me, erstwhile I can’t return different infinitesimal of nan judgement and nan judging, I retrieve his hand, and I consciousness it still patting my shoulder, and this is what I ideate it says:

‘“Hang successful there, my chap Feh, bent successful there.”’

HAPPYish was Hoffman’s past filmed role. He had been successful nan process of making The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 earlier he died, and his last scenes were rewritten and fixed to different actors.

The aviator of HAPPYish besides starred Kathryn Hahn and Rhys Ifans, but ne'er aired. However, John Cameron Mitchell made it concisely disposable for viewing successful 2020, earlier CBS/Showtime removed it.

The domiciled of Payne was later recast pinch Steve Coogan and HAPPYish ran for 10 episodes.

Feh: A Memoir by Shalom Auslander is published by Riverhead Books