Masturbation, quite clearly. But that hasn’t stopped his family from putting forward the theory that he was killed. By a Kung Fu gang.

Think of the most embarrassing moment of your life. Think of it, relive it, be there right now.

Bad, huh? Now fast forward a bit and imagine your 72-year old body being found in a Bangkok hotel room closet, naked but for a shoelace tied around your shrivelled old winky.

Puts that bachelor’s party into perspective, doesn’t it?

So, no wonder that David Carradine‘s family are going with the “he was murdered” line. To be honest, if it was us we’d hope that our relatives had the decency to claim we had “drowned in a bathtub filled with tramp’s piss while cleaning the underside of Susan Boyle‘s breasts with their tongue and listening to Coldplay albums” rather than “okay, okay, they choked on the bit of string they’d been using to heighten their masturbatory experience in an Asian hotel wardrobe“.

But the family haven’t stopped at simply proposing an explanation which doesn’t involve autoerotic asphixiation. They’ve put some thought into this. Sadly, that thought was “Hmm, David liked martial arts. He starred in a TV series and a Quentin Tarantino film about them. Maybe we could say he was practising an ancient Shaolin meditation technique? No, that’s ridiculous. Aha: Kung Fu assassination squads!”

Dear Sydney Morning Herald, what could possibly be going on here?

“David Carradine was murdered by a secret kung fu sect, his family has claimed. Relatives of the Kill Bill star believe he was “assassinated” because he was trying to expose an underworld martial arts group. Speaking on the Larry King Live US talk show, attorney Mark Geragos said: ‘David was very interested in investigating and disclosing secret societies – absolutely.’

We’re no experts, but we just can’t buy this story. For a start, everyone knows ninjas kill people using knives, throwing-stars and slow-motion flying kicks. And for a finish, Carradine’s ex-wife filed for divorce partly on the grounds of his demands for:

“…deviant sexual behaviour which was potentially deadly”

Nice try. But let us at least hope that the world remembers David Carradine as the charming young star of stylish, action-packed blockbuster films.

And definitely not as a pensioner who died while tugging away at himself.

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