Cory Monteith's Mom Thinks Pain Meds From 'Massive' Dental Work Were To Blame For His Overdose

Cory Monteith may have grown up too quickly, but he always made time for mom.
Five years after he died of a “mixed drug toxicity” of heroin and alcohol, the former Glee star’s mother is speaking out on his early life and history with substance abuse — and she says some “massive” dental work might be to blame for that final, fatal bender.
Related: Asia Argento Never Knew About Anthony Bourdain’s Suicide “Obsession”
On the subject of losing her younger son when he was just 31, Ann McGregor told People:

“I still can’t pick up the pieces. My world totally stopped. And I’m a different person than I was before.”

McGregor, a single mom who raised Monteith in Victoria, British Columbia, remembers her youngest as a precocious kid who could talk to anyone.
She recalled:

“We used to go everywhere together. We had a favorite restaurant where we’d share fish and chips. Even at 3 years old, he would stand at the counter and pay the bill. He could talk to anyone. He just had a way about him, and all I could do was enjoy it.”

McGregor says Monteith was an “advanced” child, who learned to read at just 3 years old and skipped two grades.
But his mature nature also got him involved with an older crowd by his early teens. By 13, he began drinking and smoking marijuana, and was in rehab for the second time by the time he was 19.
She continued:

“He tried to keep everything from me, because he loved me and wanted to protect me. He was just always so curious. And the darker world just drew him in.”

Eventually, Monteith was drawn to the dark world of Hollywood, where he landed small TV gigs before getting a starring role on Ryan Murphy‘s hit series Glee.
Related: Emma Watson & Chord Overstreet Spotted KISSING!
The skyrocket to fame that followed propelled the actor back into his old habits. McGregor says her son admitted he was using drugs again in December 2012, seven months before his death:

“He wasn’t ready for the Hollywood world. Drugs were his way of checking out.”

He wasn’t ready to check out permanently, though.
Monteith checked into a month-long rehab in April 2013 — but, unfortunately, had some dental work between May and July that McGregor believes affected his sobriety. She explained:

“He had little teeth and they were all capped. He had a lot of medication in his system, which was not good for his body coming out of rehab. He didn’t have enough drugs in his system to kill him, but for some reason it did because of his intolerance [built up by periods of intermittent sobriety].”

As we reported, there were traces of morphine, codeine, and heroin in the actor’s body when he was found dead in a Vancouver hotel room on July 13, 2013.
[Image via Dave Bedrosian/Future Image/WENN.]