Brendan Lemieux told Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office investigators that his father, NHL great Claude Lemieux, had relapsed into a years-old struggle with sex addiction before taking his own life in May, body camera footage obtained by the California Post reveals.
The footage was captured May 28, 2026, after Brendan discovered his father’s body. His account, delivered to deputies, reframes what had previously been described publicly as a broader sobriety setback, naming for the first time exactly what that setback involved.
The new detail arrives nearly two months after Lemieux’s death first made headlines, a gap that left plenty of room for speculation. Brendan’s own words, captured on camera rather than filtered through a family statement, now fill in some previously unknown details.
Brendan Lemieux Details His Father’s Final Days
“When I say sober, he has more issues with â his most sober thing is sex addiction versus alcohol,” Brendan told investigators, adding that he did not know whether his father had also been drinking that night, according to the Post.
Brendan said his mother, Deborah Lemieux, confronted Claude directly around 10:30 p.m. on May 27, telling him he was no longer sober. Claude confessed, Brendan said, and Deborah told him to leave the house. That confrontation, in Brendan’s telling, is what set the rest of the night in motion.
Claude had been sober for more than a decade, according to Brendan, though he and Deborah had suspected a backslide roughly a year earlier. Brendan described his father in recent months as “lashing out” and “not being nice to people” before the situation, in his words, “spiraled completely.”
When Claude failed to return home that night, Brendan tracked his father’s phone to the family’s Andros Home furniture business in Lake Park, Florida, and found him deceased inside by apparent suicide.
Previously Reported Details About Lemieux’s Death
Lemieux, a four-time Stanley Cup champion across 21 NHL seasons with the Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils, Colorado Avalanche, Phoenix Coyotes, Dallas Stars and San Jose Sharks, died by suicide on May 28 at age 60, a cause of death confirmed in earlier reporting by The Associated Press. He left messages for his family saved in his phone’s notes app, with a Post-it note directing relatives to where they could be found.
Palm Beach County’s Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed the death but withheld certain records, citing Florida statutes governing suicide cases.
Earlier accounts, including one from the Toronto Sun citing police records, described a bag containing THC edibles found near the scene, though toxicology testing later showed no substances in Lemieux’s system.
His death came days after he carried a torch onto the ice at Montreal’s Bell Centre ahead of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final, an appearance that drew no visible signs of distress. Afterward, the Lemieux family donated his brain to Boston University’s CTE Center, according to CNN’s report on the donation, for research into repetitive head trauma, though no diagnosis has been released.
Brendan has since criticized parts of the coverage, saying outlets ran “intimate details” of his father’s final hours â some accurate, he said, others fabricated â timed to what would have been Claude’s birthday, according to a Daily Beast account. Friends have separately described Lemieux as struggling with depression and strained family ties in the months before his death.
If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available at the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline â call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org.
Like HEAVY’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on HEAVY
The post Claude Lemieux Cause of Death Update: Son Details Father’s Final ‘Relapse’ appeared first on HEAVY.