She was diagnosed with AIDS in 1983; Flynt stated that she contracted the disease from a blood transfusion during a hysterectomy, and that she always used clean needles when using drugs. Althea died at age 33 when she drowned in the bathtub at the couple's Bel-Air mansion in Los Angeles, California on June 27, 1987. According to reports, she passed out from a prescription drug overdose and drowned. Her husband, however, states that at the time she was in the advanced stages of AIDS and would have died within that year, regardless. At that point he was taking care of her and claims that she was practically bedridden. Althea Flynt is buried in the Flynt family cemetery plot, located on Lakeville in Salyersville, Kentucky.