“He was always very happy, always smiling,” a friend of Toby’s tells HollywoodLife.com EXCLUSIVELY. “But he just went through a really bad breakup about a week ago and he was devastated over it. Toby kept a lot of things secret from his friends and family, so hearing about this heartbreaking split was surprising. It’s so sad that he wasn’t able to find closure over his broken heart before he died.”
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Toby, whose legal name is Tobias Strebel, was last seen on Aug. 18, and it was speculated that he was driving a grey 2009 Toyota Camry at the time. Three days later, his body was found in a Model 6 in the San Fernando Valley. Police found drugs in the hotel room, although it’s not known if they were the cause of his death.
The 35-year-old made headlines in July 2014, when he appeared on the E! reality series Botched, and revealed he had spent $100,000 on plastic surgeries to look like Justin Bieber — but he still wasn’t satisfied. Unfortunately for Toby, the doctors decided not to operate on him, because they were worried about all the complications that could come from the amount of procedures he was hoping for. He also appeared on an episode of My Strange Addiction. “Some people buy fancy cars or fancy mansions,” he said on the show. “What I do with my money, is I get surgery to look more like Justin Bieber!”
Our thoughts remain with Toby’s loved ones during this difficult time.
— Alyssa Norwin, reporting by Tim Plant