Janis Joplin was truly ahead of her time. In an era when female musicians were expected to be less intense and outspoken than their male counterparts, the Port Arthur, Texas, native shattered any preconceived notions of what was expected from a woman in popular music. Aside from belting it out onstage with unbridled passion and a much rougher voice than the average female vocalist of her time, Joplin didn’t hold anything back offstage when it came to her larger-than-life persona. She openly had relationships with men and women, as noted by Far Out Magazine, and she wasn’t afraid to throw down if the occasion called for it, as she infamously clobbered The Doors’ frontman, Jim Morrison, with a bottle of Southern Comfort for drunkenly making advances on her at a party.

Unfortunately, the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle caught up way too soon with Joplin, who died on October 4, 1970, of an accidental heroin overdose, joining a growing list of musicians and other entertainers who died at the young age of 27. Even sadder was the fact that at the time of her death, she was working on “Pearl,” an album that would reach the top of the Billboard 200 and yield a posthumous No. 1 hit single in “Me and Bobby McGee.” Here’s the story of Joplin’s tragic death, as well a look at the alleged circumstances that might have led to her fatal overdose.

Joplin was reportedly clean for half a year before her death

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Joplin was supposed to record vocal tracks for Pearl on the day of her death

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Different theories have sought to further explain Joplin's death

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Aside from how Joplin apparently had easy access to drug dealers at the time of her death, there have been a few other notable theories that sought to provide additional context to the tragedy. Laura Joplin wrote in “Love, Janis” (via Ultimate Classic Rock) that her sister purchased heroin on the afternoon before her death from a dealer named George, who usually asked a chemist to “check” the drug before selling it to anyone. But with the chemist being out of town that day, George unwittingly sold Janis a batch of heroin that was “40 to 50 percent pure,” making it up to 10 times stronger than usual.

As for the reasons Joplin started doing drugs again after being clean for some time, her former Big Brother and the Holding Company bandmate Peter Albin claimed that the singer went back to using heroin because she was drinking much more than usual, and that “wasn’t good” for her singing voice.

It has also been theorized that Joplin might have been stood up by the two people she was supposedly dating — her fiancé, Seth Morgan, and her on-again, off-again lover Peggy Caserta — shortly before her death. According to Far Out Magazine, the musician purportedly invited the two for a threesome “or at the very least, some fun,” but when they failed to show up, she ultimately chose to do some heroin by herself — only to succumb to a fatal overdose.