10 Famous Comedians With Dark Sides You Didn’t Know About
2. Kelsey Grammer
The face of Frasier Crane and voice of Sideshow Bob; Kelsey Grammer plays a prominent role in our pop culture consciousness. Comedian, producer, director, writer and more recently, X-Mens Beast - Grammers proverbial finger has been in plenty of media pies; but his personal life is a lot less positive. Most people are lucky enough to never go through the torture of a loved ones murder: in Kelseys case, hes been through not one, but three. In what can only be described as a horrible curse, many of Grammers family and friends have been killed in both violent and tragically accidental manners.
Kelseys parents divorced when he was two years old and his father, Frank Grammer, moved in with his second wife, Elizabeth, and their four children. In 1968, when Kelsey was 11, a man named Arthur B. Niles set fire to Frank Grammers car outside the home he shared with his wife. When Grammar went outside to see what was going on, Niles shot him twice. He was found not guilty of the murder by reason of insanity.
In an even ghastlier turn of events, Grammers younger sister Karen was abducted, raped by four men and murdered by a man named Freddie Lee Glenn in 1975. The men had decided to rob the Red Lobster in Colorado, where Karen Grammer had just finished her shift as a waitress. When they left (without any money) they forced her into their car and drove her to their apartment. After the ordeal - in which Karen was repeatedly raped, stabbed in the back, hand, and neck - they dumped her in a trailer park. Kelsey Grammar had to identify the body a week later.
Speaking of his sisters death, Kelsey said: I was supposed to protect her I could not. I have never gotten over it. It very nearly destroyed me. He became a heavy drinker; doing jail-time and community service for drunk driving and cocaine possession - though he never let this affect his work. Recently, Kelsey accepted the apology of Freddy Glenn, a noble act indeed.
Five years after Karens murder, both of Kelseys twin half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident when one went in to rescue the other drowning. One brothers body was never recovered. If all of this wasnt horrific enough, Grammers close friend (and producer of Frasier) was aboard American Airlines Flight 11: thats right, the first plane to hit the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks.
We just reached a whole new level of respect for this guy.