The Tragic Story Of How James Gandolfini's Ex, Lora Somoza, Died

This article contains mention of violence.

James Gandolfini's ex-fiance, Lora Somoza, had a tragic death that ran eerily parallel to the actor's. On July 5, 2020, Somoza was at her mother's home in Los Angeles, California when she slipped by the pool, hit her head, and died at 51 years old — the same age Gandolfini was when he died of a heart attack in 2013, per The U.S. Sun. Somoza was a noted sex therapist who had a podcast titled "Between the Sheets with Lora Somoza," and wrote an advice column that reached 30,000 readers, per Huffington Post.

Prior to writing advice columns, Somoza worked in Hollywood for seven years as a script developer. It was on the set of the movie "The Mexican," where she worked as an assistant to the director, that she met Gandolfini in 2000, per Page Six. Somoza and Gandolfini were engaged in 2003 but broke off the engagement by 2005. "It was not a case of one dumping the other, as some have reported," the star's manager told the Associated Press (via TODAY). "It was very mutual."

A major reason for their split was that Somoza moved to Los Angeles to care for her mother who had Alzheimer's, while Gandolfini stayed in the New York area to film "The Sopranos." According to Somoza's close friend, Zoe Moon, she never recovered from the breakup (via The U.S. Sun). Before Gandolfini's untimely death, there were rumors that the two had rekindled their romance, but were those rumors true?

After James Gandolfini and Lora Somoza called off their engagement, the duo still stayed in contact. According to Somoza's friend, Zoe Moon, the former couple had strong residual feelings. "Even at the end of their relationship, even when they broke up, they were still in love with each other. They just couldn't get past a few things," Moon told The U.S. Sun. "She never stopped seeing him as the love of her life and never stopped loving him."

Following Gandolfini's death in 2013, rumors circulated that the actor had an affair with Somoza while married to Deborah Lin. The sex columnist cleared the air, and revealed that she and Gandolfini stayed in touch, but their relationship was not romantic. Somoza spoke to her ex-partner two weeks before his death. "I was happy that he felt like he had found a woman in his life that made him happy and that he was in a good place," she told "Inside Edition" (via Page Six). Somoza resented the implications that Gandolfini cheated. "We were friends and we were going to stay friends ... He was happily married and I am happily with somebody," she added.

Somoza believed that Gandolfini's star-turning role as Tony Soprano played a part in leading to his fatal heart attack. "He was a man of giant appetites," she told the Daily Star in 2013. "He was a private man who found fame difficult to deal with."