Actor Kelsey Grammer reveals he once used drugs and alcohol to deal with a series of personal tragedies, but says these days he’s in a better place.
When he was 13 years old, Grammer’s father was killed in a home invasion. Later, his younger sister, Karen, was raped and murdered when she was 18. After that, Grammer lost his two half-brothers in a scuba diving accident in the Virgin Islands.
To cope with these losses, Grammer turned to drugs and alcohol. He even served time in prison for drunk-driving incidents in 1990. Eventually, he headed to rehab and got sober.
“I just put [that pain] where it is: in the past,” Grammer said in an interview. “But it’s a pain that you can always stumble into again—it’s with you 24/7, especially in the case of tragic death, and there have been a few of those. It’s just part of life. Maybe I learned a little earlier than most, but it’s just the way it goes.”
His sobriety was tested through three failed marriages before finding a lasting relationship with a British flight attendant named Kayte Walsh. The couple has faced several tough challenges together, including a heart attack that Grammer survived in 2008 and several miscarriages.
“Kayte and I had a couple of miscarriages before we had our first child,” he admitted. “That was devastating. These things are hard. But when it’s good, it’s magnificent.”
These days, the 62-year-old actor is living a better life—in a stable relationship and father to seven children from his marriages. Now out of AA, he says he can enjoy a daily drink with no trouble.
“It takes me a while to figure things out,” he said. “I usually have to repeat a lesson or two—maybe three times! I survived my previous relationships just in time to land in a place where I could be in a relationship with a terrific person.”
He credits his faith for keeping his head on straight through troubled times. “As a Christian, we always fail because we can’t become Christ,” he said. “But I can try to at least emulate the best qualities, even if I may fall short.”