Kristoff St. John’s first wife believes soap star ‘drank himself to death'

The first wife of actor Kristoff St. John believes the “Young and the Restless” star was released prematurely from a mental hospital last month and then “drank himself to death."

Mia St. John, a professional boxer who had two children with the soap star during their union, told the Daily News she was “shocked” that a coroner’s report released Tuesday focused so heavily on her ex’s heart disease, not his purported alcohol overdose.

“I think it’s misleading,” she said during a phone interview. “He had four times the legal limit (in his system). The amount of alcohol was a lethal amount.”

According to the Los Angeles County Coroner, the immediate cause of St. John’s Feb. 3 death was hypertrophic heart disease. Contributing factors were “effects of ethanol,” meaning alcohol, and “myocardial bridging,” or a portion of his heart muscle constricting blood flow, the full autopsy report obtained by The News said.

The report confirmed St. John had significant alcohol in his system when he was found unresponsive on the floor of his Woodland Hills townhouse.

It also revealed the actor, 52, had been admitted to the Las Encinas Mental Health Hospital in Pasadena on Jan. 26 and placed on a 72-hour psychiatric hold.

He was released Feb. 1, two days before death. the report said.

Mia told The News she believes the star — who won two Emmy and 10 NAACP awards playing Neil Winters on the CBS soap opera — was still a danger to himself when he was allowed to leave the acute psychiatric facility.

Attempts to reach a hospital spokesperson late Tuesday were not immediately successful.

Mia said St. John called her only hours before he died and sounded drunk and deeply despondent over the 2014 suicide death of their 24-year-old son Julian.

Their son had been battling schizophrenia and addiction when he took his own life while in the care of a mental hospital in Long Beach, Calif., she said.

Mia said her ex-husband entered a “downward spiral” after the tragedy and mentioned wanting to take his own life shortly before his hospitalization at Las Encinas.

“Kristoff was in the hospital just two days before he died. Our attorney Mark Geragos got him in there. It was supposed to be for two weeks, but they let him go after a few days without letting me know,” she said.

“I was livid,” she said of his release. “He was suicidal going in and suicidal leaving.”

She said during her last conversation with St. John shortly before his death, the actor was crying and “saying he wanted to die.”

"I tried to keep him on the phone as long as I could. He told me to call his daughters and tell them he loved them. He said, ‘Julian is at the door and he’s just going to take me for a walk.’ I panicked,” she recalled.

Mia said she called St. John’s friend, who already had plans to watch the football game with the actor. She asked the friend to head over immediately and break down the door if necessary, she said.

The friend ultimately contacted St. John’s second ex-wife to gain entry to the townhouse with her key, the autopsy report said.

They found St. John unresponsive between a couch and a coffee table in the two-story townhouse, according to the report. He was pronounced dead at 4:02 p.m., the coroner report said.

Mia said she arrived at the residence a short time later.

“I got there when the coroner showed up. It was a typical scene at Kristoff’s house. There were a lot of vodka bottles. Empty vodka bottles. Alcohol everywhere,” she said.

“(St. John) reportedly has had mental health problems since the death of his son,” the autopsy report said.

“Every day he was crying about our son,” Mia said Tuesday. “He was suffering so much, But there was so little help.”

Mia said she wanted to speak up to shine a light on what she considers the country’s failure to adequately address mental health.

“If someone who’s a celebrity like Kristoff can’t get the help he needs, what does that mean for other people?” she said.

“My worst fear for so many years was that I would lose my son. My next fear was that I was going to lose his father. I ended up losing them both,” Mia told The News.

“I feel like I’m on this desperate mission to reform mental healthcare,” she said. “I feel like I’m spinning my wheels sometimes.”