Benefits Street star Fungi died this morning at the age of 50 from a heart attack, apparently triggered by a drug overdose.
The dad-of-four had been living in a house for recovering addicts in Birmingham in his final month and was reportedly downing up to five litres of a cider a day.
Fungi - real name James Clarke - had battled alcohol and crack cocaine addiction for years.
A friend of the TV star revealed how Fungi had been downing five litres of cider a day in his final months.
"He was living in a sustained housing hostel with ten rooms with a bloke in each," the pal told the Sun newspaper.
"I used to live there and Fungi was in room two. I got a text at 5.30am from a bloke in there to say Fungi had been found dead and his body had been removed.
"He was still on the booze and used to get through five litres of Frosty Jack a day. He was a character and I will miss him."
Fungi shot to fame in 2014 as one of the stars of controversial reality show Benefits Street.
The Channel 4 series made unlikely celebrities of Fungi and other neighbours of James Turner Street, including White Dee.
Fungi, who was unable to read or write, once claimed he was the one who came up with the title of the hit TV series.
But while other stars like White Dee enjoyed fleeting fame with appearance on reality shows including Celebrity Big Brother , after the series Fungi ended up living rough in Mosely.
Speaking last year, Fungi said he stopped speaking to White Dee after claiming that she didn't help him when she became famous.
He told The Sun: "The friendship has gone now. I'm p***ed off with her. I'm supposed to be her family and she ignores me.
"I think it's ridiculous she's making these comments about the show.
"That's a joke when you think how well she did financially off the back of it. I didn't make a f*****g penny."
James failed to profit from his fame with one of his lowest ebbs coming in October 2016, when he was sleeping rough under Birmingham's Chinese Pagoda and drinking 10 cans of super-strength cider and lager a day.
But he managed to quit drugs after a stranger who saw him on television paid £11,500 to put him through rehab.
After appearing to have cleaned up from drugs, James fell on hard times again when his Universal Credit was cut by more than half. He had been claiming £500 a month, but this was slashed to £229 for reasons which he said had not been explained to him.
He dubbed the system a 'nightmare' and the 'worst thing in the world' adding that if he wasn't well known, things would have been even worse for him.
In his last interview, James said: “It causing me a hell of a lot of stress, I have to top up the gas and electric and buy food and there's nothing left after that.
“If it wasn't for who I am and people recognising me and giving me a few quid to get by, I would be back in jail now. I'd be stealing to survive.
“I know people in Moseley and if I get really hungry I go down there and they give me a free meal.
“If I went there starving to one of the shops they would give me food straight away."
In February this year, Fungi told how he was beaten up and left for dead. He explained to Birmingham Live how he'd smashed his head against a kerb as he fell to the ground in Moseley High Street.
During a chat with the local paper, he shrugged off the damage and said “I’ve had worse.”
He also proudly proclaimed that his body has been rinsed of the heroin and crack cocaine addiction that imprisoned him for 22 years, but admitted “I am an alcoholic.”
After battling with booze, Fungi was found dead at the age of 50.
Ash Chowhan, WHO works as the housing manager of the property where Fungi was found for the past two years, described his upset at hearing the news.
"It's so sad, I got the news at 3am this morning that Fungi had passed away," he said.
"The tenants at the house told me they went into his room and saw him dead in his room. It's very sad news because Fungi was a very good tenant of ours. He was just a nice guy, it's just sad to see him go like this.
"Every time I went by I used to chat with him, he was a great guy. He used to be a big issue seller. We would provide support for him in the accommodation."
Ash went on: "Just last week he was saying to me that he was going to turn his life around, changing his drinking habits. It's sad and shocking news, we've know him for a good few years.
"I don't know the full story, but I think the tenants must have knocked his door and opened and then found him. One of the tenants mentioned that Fungi had left a suicide note but I never really asked him much in the way of details.
"We phoned the ambulance and police and we've just left the situation in their hands. This has never happened before in my two years of managing the building."
He added: "I knew Fungi from before that, he was homeless and we helped him find a place to stay. I couldn't sleep after it, it was so shocking, Fungi was a good man.
"I would like to pay a tribute to him some time in the future were all of our tenants get together and do something big for him. Maybe in Moseley Village which is where he used to chill out, so we can remember the man, Fungi."
