01 July 2023 , 23:25
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Darius Danesh's girlfriend Lauren Cheek has paid an emotional tribute to the former Pop Idol star.
The singer and actor was found dead in his US apartment in August last year, when he was just 41 years old.
She still thinks he might pick up the phone and call her, or simply walk through the front door, as he died so suddenly, she said.
Lauren admitted the pain was "too much" because she loved him so much, in what was an emotional and heartbreaking tribute to her boyfriend.
Lauren said: “I still can’t believe he is gone because it was so sudden and heartbreaking.
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"I keep thinking he is going to call me or walk through the door.
The singer and actor was found dead in his US apartment in August last year (Handout)"When someone you love that intensely is ripped away from you, it’s too much.
"D would tell everyone, ‘This is the woman I want to have my children with. I love her. I want to make her my wife’.
"We were planning on getting engaged towards the end of the year and then get married and have kids.
"There is this piece of land right next to his family’s cabin in Scotland that we fell in love with and visited multiple times.
"We either wanted to do it there or somewhere random, like an island," she told The Sun.
Darius's cause of death was later revealed to be "inhalation of chloroethane", but the autopsy showed his heart had also swollen to twice its normal size, Lauren added.
Chloroethane, commonly known as ethyl chloride, is used in petrol additives, plastics, dyes, pharmaceuticals, topical anaesthetics, and as an industrial refrigerant.
Ethyl chloride became popular as an inhalant street drug in the 1980s.
The singer also had a broken neck, as a result of a car crash from back in 2010.
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The pair had plans to get married before he suddenly diedDarius was using chloroethane for his pain, because he didn't want to take any painkillers.
The death was ruled an accident by the medical examiner.
Just a month after Darius died, his family announced that he had been using the drug after the car crash, but it ultimately contributed to his death.
Brief inhalations of the drug can result in dizziness, euphoria, confusion, incoordination, hallucinations, impairment of short-term memory and narcosis.
The Scottish singer-songwriter and actor – who was known as Darius Danesh when he made his first bid for fame in ITV show Popstars in 2001 – also appeared on the first Pop Idol in 2002, finishing third behind Gareth Gates and eventual winner Will Young.