Iron Cinema: Longtime friend Ric Drasin reflects on Rich Piana’s death.

IRON CINEMA – Every Monday we connect you with Generation Iron director Vlad Yudin. Get a first hand look at the entire journey of the bodybuilding industry – ranging from athlete interviews, behind-the-scene looks at major events, and insight into the Generation Iron Fitness Network‘s original shows and films.

A lot of us in the Generation Iron offices are still reeling from the passing of Rich Piana – especially as many have met him personally in the process of filming Generation Iron 2. I decided to reach out to Ric Drasin, who was a well known long time friend to Rich Piana, to get more context and insight into Rich’s passing.

Ric Drasin has been releasing honest, entertaining, and informative videos on YouTube for quite some time… so I knew that he would be able to have a frank and reflective conversation with me about Rich Piana’s life leading up to his tragic death. We touch upon the rumors of drug use, his past heath issues, and the kind of life Rich always pushed to live even up to the very last few days. You can watch our full interview above.

SHARE

52 COMMENTS

  2. Rich was such a cool guy man… A real alpha just doing what he loved and won multiple times in life, as he used to say, he had an amazing life, wish he never died, his videos would always cheer me up and the troll comments (which weren’t serious anyway) always gave me a good laugh, plus they brought Rich money. We miss you big guy! 🙁

  20. Great interview..truthful and insightful. Let’s keep in mind that thus far Rich’s cause of death has not yet been determined and is still pending. Indicating a “heart attack”… is an assumption, an opinion, as nothing has yet been confirmed.

    • I met Rich two years running at Bodypower UK, he was a genuinely nice guy, the time he afforded me and my brother there was great, along with the other people standing in the very long line. he recorded two mobile phone videos with us with his favourite statement ‘you got to do whatever it takes’ he was game for a laugh, they were quite funny! RIP Rich

  24. wow !!! noane could guess his hearth failed of how much and whatever he toke . all my respect for him but i would like people to stop taking advantage of his death .that only makes it look bad

    • To be fair, Ric and Rich were super close – like family. I know Ric. He’s not taking advantage of any situation. In fact, he was the first to say on social media ‘stop being disrespectful to Rich’ when the news first broke of his crisis.

  33. It may been confirmed that he had a heart attack but the talks report isn’t back yet which means what actually caused it you might want to talk to the cardiologist that’s an expert. Then you might want to wait for the toxicology screen to get back before you started blabbering!!!! There’s people that are 600 pounds and they’re older than Rich was and I don’t exercise and I don’t start pre-workout drink.God bless Rich and his family.

  38. I think a doctor did tell him to loose weight, mass. Rich was saying that he wanted to get down to, bout.. 225 -250ish.. I kept telling him, brother, how you doing with the weight loss.. You gonna look awesome, reinvent yourself… no response. His soul was huge.. Just how he was wired. I get it. I’m guilty of the same shit.. couple weeks out I find myself back to a heavy routine.. iron is in the blood.. Well, R.I.P RIch, Gonna miss ya

LEAVE A REPLY