Taylor Hawkins died in Bogotá on March 25, 2022, aged 50, while Foo Fighters were touring South America. His final public performance was with the band at Lollapalooza Argentina five days earlier. Colombian officials reported an emergency response and a preliminary toxicology finding, but that finding did not establish a cause of death.
March 20, 2022: Hawkins’s final public performance
Foo Fighters played Lollapalooza Argentina on March 20. Storyful identified Hawkins singing Queen’s “Somebody to Love” during the set and reported that this was his final public performance before his death. The documented chronology establishes a public appearance, not what happened in his private life during the days that followed. Storyful’s report
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March 25: An emergency in Bogotá
Hawkins died at a hotel in Bogotá while Foo Fighters were on tour in South America. The band had been scheduled to perform that evening at the Estéreo Picnic festival. ABC News (Australia) reported that Bogotá’s government said the city emergency centre received a report of a patient with chest pain and dispatched an ambulance, although a private ambulance had already arrived. Health workers attempted resuscitation but could not revive him.
The city’s account gives the reported sequence, but it does not provide a precise medical chronology or identify the cause of death. The festival appearance was cancelled following his death.
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March 25: Foo Fighters announce his death
The band announced Hawkins’s death on March 25, expressing grief and sympathy for his wife, children and family, and asking for privacy. Its statement said: “The Foo Fighters family is devastated by the tragic and untimely loss of our beloved Taylor Hawkins.” It added: “His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live on with all of us forever.” The announcement is reproduced in the Los Angeles Times’ coverage.
March 26–27: What the preliminary toxicology report said
Contemporaneous reporting on a preliminary urine toxicology report from Colombian authorities said that 10 psychoactive substances and medicines were detected. The examples reported included THC, tricyclic antidepressants, benzodiazepines and opioids. The report did not specify quantities.
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Detection is not proof that a substance caused a death. ABC News reported that the toxicology findings were preliminary, that authorities had not reached a conclusion about the cause, and that the forensic examination was continuing. The National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences was quoted as saying: “The National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences continues its examination to provide a full understanding of the circumstances that led to the death of Taylor Hawkins.” ABC News (Australia), March 27, 2022
The Los Angeles Times likewise reported that the forensic institute and attorney general’s office said examinations and investigation were ongoing. Neither the preliminary screen nor the reported emergency response, by itself, establishes a cause of death. Los Angeles Times, March 26, 2022
What is—and is not—publicly established
The public record described in contemporaneous coverage establishes the basic timeline: Hawkins performed with Foo Fighters in Argentina on March 20, died in Bogotá on March 25, and was the subject of a preliminary toxicology report announced over the following days. A later 2026 report by Louder says Colombian authorities never issued an official cause of death. That is a description of what later reporting says, not a new forensic finding. Louder, March 19, 2026
On the evidence reported in these accounts, it would be inaccurate to state that Hawkins died of an overdose or to assign a particular substance as the cause. The reported toxicology was preliminary; the cited contemporaneous coverage did not give quantities or a cause-of-death conclusion.
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