Getty heir found dead with ‘traumatic rectal injury’, ex-girlfriend detained

The grandson of billionaire oilman J. Paul Getty, Andrew Getty, has been found dead at age 47 at his home in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The cause of death was not immediately clear, the paper said. However, celebrity news website TMZ reported that Getty, the son of Gordon Getty and an heir to his grandfather’s oil fortune, was found in a bathroom of his Hollywood Hills home about 2pm on Tuesday under suspicious circumstances and that a former girlfriend was being detained as a potential witness or suspect.

TMZ, citing police and paramedic sources, said Getty had suffered a “traumatic injury to the rectal area”.

The Times said that Andrew Getty had sought a restraining order against a woman two weeks earlier.

A Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman said that detectives were conducting a death investigation at a home in the Hollywood Hills, where a white male was found not breathing.