A medical examiner in New York City confirmed on Wednesday that South African actress Charlbi Dean died of bacterial sepsis in August. She was 32.
Dean, who had a breakout role in the comedy/drama “Triangle of Sadness,” which won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022, suddenly died on Aug. 29 from an “unexpected illness,” her representatives told news outlets a day after she passed away.
No other details about the actress’s death were provided until this week.
A spokesperson for the medical examiner confirmed to celebrity news magazine People that the sepsis that caused Dean’s sudden death “was a complication from asplenia (the absence of a spleen) due to ‘remote blunt trauma to her torso.'”
The coroner ruled Dean’s death an accident.
In 2009, the actress had her spleen removed after she was involved in a major and near-fatal car accident.
The spokesperson also told the publication that the sepsis was caused after Dean was infected with a bacteria known as capnocytophaga.
Capnocytophaga is a type of bacteria common in the saliva of cats and dogs. While the bacteria very rarely lead to illness, there have been isolated cases where it spread and caused illness in humans through bites, scratches, or coming into close contact with a dog or cat.
“Most people who have contact with a dog or cat do not become sick,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “People with weakened immune systems who have difficulty fighting off infections (for example, people with cancer or those taking certain medications such as steroids) are at greater risk of becoming ill.”
Although the bacterial infection can occur via a bite or lick from an animal, it is unclear if an animal was actually responsible for Dean’s infection as the medical examiner has not made her full autopsy public.
Dean, who was born and raised in a port city on South Africa’s southwest coast, had a recurring role as the assassin Syonide on the DC Comics television series “Black Lightning,” which aired on the CW from 2018 to 2021.
She started modeling as a child, making frequent appearances on fashion runways and magazine covers in the decades that followed.
In 2010, Dean made her acting debut in the film “Spud,” an adaptation of a popular South African novel about a boys’ boarding school starring Troye Sivan and John Cleese. She reprised her role in a 2013 sequel.
In “Triangle of Sadness,” the first English-language film from Swedish “Force Majeure” director Ruben Östlund, Dean and Harris Dickinson play a celebrity fashion-model couple on a cruise for the ultra-rich that descends into chaos. It also stars Woody Harrelson as the ship’s captain.
The film won the Palme D’Or at Cannes in May and opens in the U.S. and most of Europe in October.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.