Is Reggie Watts To Blame for Katherine McCollough’s Death?

In March, following the tragic death of his ex-partner, Katherine Early McCollough, who died by suicide at age 36, musician-comedian Reggie Watts took to social media to share his condolences and explain why he was continuing to work gigs through his grief in a 3-minute video. Just five months later, that video has been deleted, and a Rolling Stone exposé on Thursday opened the floodgates as to why.

Per the outlet, McCollough’s family now claims that Watts was not blameless in her death. In fact, they allege that Watts was an avid ketamine and psychedelic drug advocate—and steered McCollough into developing a ketamine addiction, leading to her drug-induced manic episode, and ultimately, her suicide.

The report also contains claims from five other women who previously dated Watts and say he had a pattern of “reckless and selfish” behavior regarding drugs in their relationships. Similarly to McCollough’s family, they accused Watts of pushing them past their boundaries with drugs, and two of them alleged their relationships with him were “emotionally and psychologically abusive.”

McCollough’s family told the outlet that her drug consumption “drastically increased” after dating Watts, and eventually it evolved into a “central” part of their relationship—apparently a prerequisite for emotional intimacy with him. The two started dating in May 2024 and broke up in October 2025, following McCollough’s “drug-induced manic episode” that summer. In March, McCollough traveled to Peru to take her own life. According to Rolling Stone, her loved ones maintain that “if McCollough had never met Watts, had he not pushed his extreme views on psychedelics and substances on her and had McCollough not adopted those views, that she’d still be alive today.”

Watts’ attorney told the outlet that the claims are “dangerously false” and said it was a “preconceived narrative” to suggest Watts was responsible for her suicide: “Ms. McCollough did not need any so-called ‘encouragement’ from him [to take drugs].”

But on Monday, Watts was reportedly removed from the lineups of the Shambala, Greenbelt, and Electric Picnic festivals, as well as a future run of shows in Bristol with collaborator CAPYAC. The fallout has also reached Scott Aukerman’s radio show and podcast, Comedy Bang! Bang!, which dropped the theme song Watts wrote from Monday’s episode. Instead, the episode was introduced by a “generic British woman’s voice” announcing the episode number, a subtle effort to establish distance from Watts’s name.

After reading the exposé, revisiting the since-deleted condolences video casts a new disturbing shadow.

Reggie Watts deleted video pic.twitter.com/FkLWJCC4jN

— sam (@SamFoote5) August 22, 2026

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