Martin Short’s daughter Katherine Hartley Short’s cause of death has been revealed.
Us Weekly can confirm via online records that Katherine’s death has been officially ruled a suicide. A rep for Martin, 75, confirmed Katherine’s death at age 42 in a statement on Tuesday, February 24.
“It is with profound grief that we confirm the passing of Katherine Hartley Short. The Short family is devastated by this loss and asks for privacy at this time,” the statement read. “Katherine was beloved by all and will be remembered for the light and joy she brought into the world.”
No further details were shared at the time. TMZ reported on Tuesday that the Los Angeles Police Department responded to her Hollywood Hills home one day prior.
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Us Weekly reached out to the LAPD for comment.
Katherine received her bachelor’s degree from New York University in 2006 and her master’s in social work from the University of Southern California in 2010. She worked as a licensed clinical social worker in Los Angeles and did part-time work at the clinic Amae Health, where she aided community outreach, family support groups, peer support and psychotherapy. She was also reportedly involved with a nonprofit organization called Bring Change to Mind, which is dedicated to breaking stigmas surrounding mental health.
Katherine mostly stayed out of the public eye. She attended a handful of events with her father over the years, including the afterparty for The Producers in 2003 and the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in 2011.
Martin adopted Katherine with his late wife, Nancy Dolman, who died in August 2010 after a battle with ovarian cancer. The couple also shared sons Oliver, 39, and Henry, 36, whom they welcomed via adoption.
Martin shared an update on his kids two years after Dolman’s death, telling The Guardian that it had been a “tough two years.”
“This is the thing of life that we live in denial about, that it will ever happen to us or our loved ones, and when it does you gain a little and you suffer a little,” Martin told the outlet. “There’s no big surprise.”
He further opened up about Dolman’s death during a 2014 appearance on The Meredith Vieira Show.
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“[Nancy] had once said to me, ‘I don’t want a funeral, and I don’t want a memorial. Throw a party, or not.’ She just was so irritated that she was losing this battle, she didn’t want to think about it,” he explained. “So I just followed her wishes. We went up, we had a party with about 30 close friends and family. She was cremated. The kids and I went into a boat, we sprinkled the ashes into the water, and we jumped into the ashes.”
The Only Murders in the Building star later told AARP that he tries to think about how Dolman would approach decisions about their kids.
“I believe that when people die, they zoom into the people that love them,” he shared. “This idea that it just ends, and don’t speak of them — that’s wrong. That’s based on denial that we’re all going to die. So to me, she’s still here.”
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