The boyfriend of Ashley Riggitano, the NYC fashionista who committed suicide earlier this week, said he was devastated by her death and didn’t know why she took her own life.
Drew Heissenbuttel, an aspiring race car driver, told RadarOnline :
“Ashley was a gorgeous girl and we had a great relationship. We were on and off for some time but were together again at the time she passed away . She loved me and I loved her back.”
Heissenbuttel said he knew something was going on with Riggitano’s feud with five other girls but, out of respect for her family, he couldn’t say anything about it.
What is known is that, prior to her death, Riggitano had been fighting with another girl, Alison Tinari, over her friendship with Heissenbuttel. Tinari apparently told Riggitano , “Go try to kill yourself on Xanax again, you unstable loser. Go f*** yourself and never speak to me again.”
Tinari has denied that she knew Riggitano and said the 22-year-old harassed her on Facebook. Tinari also said the only thing she was ashamed of was that she told Riggitano to overdose on Xanax.
In the “suicide diary” she left behind, Riggitano wrote that Tinari and four other girls — Teresa Castaldo, Beth Bassil, Victoria Van Thunen, and Samantha Horneff — should not be allowed to attend her funeral.
While Heissenbuttel would not comment on Riggitano’s fight with Tinari and the others, he did say that he wanted to clarify that he was not “ the guy everyone is saying harassed Ashley. ”
“I was the guy that she loved and that loved her,” he said.
Heissenbuttel went on to say, “On the day of her death, the last thing she said to me was that she loved me. I knew something was wrong though, but I didn’t know what.” Heissenbuttel, who lives in North Carolina, said he will be flying to New York to attend Riggitano’s funeral. He also said he would dedicate his race next week to her.
Riggitano committed suicide Wednesday evening by jumping off the George Washington Bridge . The New Jersey native, who worked as an intern for designer Alex Woo, was described as talented but erratic and sometimes unstable.
