More details have emerged surrounding the death of Dana Carvey’s eldest son Dex.
On Tuesday, Rolling Stone confirmed with the Los Angeles Medical Examiner that Dex Carvey died on Nov. 15 of an accidental overdose due to fentanyl, ketamine, and cocaine toxicity. He was 32.
Back in November, Dana Carvey and his wife Paula Zwagerman confirmed that their son had died in a “terrible tragedy” after an overdose.
“Dex packed a lot into those 32 years. He was extremely talented at so many things — music, art, filmmaking, comedy — and pursued all of them passionately,” they said. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that Dex loved life,” the couple wrote in mid-November.
“And when you were with him, you loved life too,” their message continued. “He made everything fun. But most of all, he loved his family, his friends and his girlfriend, Kaylee. Dex was a beautiful person. His handmade birthday cards are a treasure. We will miss him forever.”
Carvey later posted a photo of his son on Instagram with the caption: “Fuck the tabloids. This is my boy.” He also shared a photo of the pair working together, writing “What a joy.”
Before his death, Dex Carvey followed his father into comedy and opened for Dana’s 2016 Netflix special, Straight White Male. In 2022, Dana and his sons released The Weird Place, a sci-fi comedy podcast-adventure produced by Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco.
Carvey spoke to David Spade about the loss of his son in a new podcast episode of Fly on the Wall about his “private journey” of healing with his wife and younger son Thomas. “We’re all together,” he said. “And we do a lot of fun things. We hike, we go to church. You just want to make sure you keep moving.”
“I’m kind of on the pain train with about millions of other people on this planet. And you don’t know how long you’re going to be on it or when it will stop or when it will get better,” Carvey added. “But in the meantime, all of this kind of stuff [like work] is very healthy.”
