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-Men€™s €˜Beast€™ - Grammer€™s 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 one€™s murder: in Kelsey€™s case, he€™s been through not one, but three. In what can only be described as a horrible curse, many of Grammer€™s family and friends have been killed in both violent and tragically accidental manners.

Kelsey€™s 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 Grammer€™s 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, Grammer€™s 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 sister€™s death, Kelsey said: €œI 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 Karen€™s murder, both of Kelsey€™s twin half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident when one went in to rescue the other drowning. One brother€™s body was never recovered. If all of this wasn€™t horrific enough, Grammer€™s close friend (and producer of Frasier) was aboard American Airlines Flight 11: that€™s 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.

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Human woman. Content Manager at What Culture. Lover of many "ologies", punk rock and cats. My god is Ilúvatar. Follow me on Twitter: @nina_cresswell