Throughout his career, Jim Carrey has taken on challenging roles, pushed boundaries,
and entertained plenty of fans. But like a lot of hilarious people, there's a darker side to
his story. Here are some tragic details about this iconic actor and comedian.
Carrey's early years growing up in the suburbs of Toronto weren't particularly easy.
When he was 12, he struggled to make sense of life after his father lost his job.
As he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018,
"I was angry. My father was hurting, so I blamed the world. It doesn't occur to
you when you're a kid, 'Hey, maybe my dad was a drag at work. Maybe he
hated his job so much that he was just an emotional skunk."
"When I was about 14 or 15, my father lost his job, and I actually became homeless for quite
some time. Of course, I grew up in Canada, so I thought we had just gone camping, you know."
Carrey's dad eventually found work in a tire factory, and young Jim and his siblings joined
to help with just about everything. They would put in as much as eight hours a day after school,
working as janitors and security guards at the factory. Carrey struggled to cope with
everything that was happening around him. He used to get top-notch grades,
but then his academic performance began to slip. His relationships similarly suffered,
and when he turned 16 years old, he dropped out of school. His father was upset,
but he didn't challenge his son. Although, as Carrey admitted to The Hollywood Reporter,
"Sometimes, I wish he had."
Carrey's relationship with his mother was hardly any less stressful,
as she was often sick and depressed. At the dinner table, she would complain about her health,
which scared her son terribly. She came from a troubled past herself,
as her parents were alcoholics, which made her crave love and attention, thus why she complained
the way she did. And so her son couldn't help but worry about his parents' well-being.
When Carrey decided to try his luck in the entertainment industry,
he realized that things were going to be incredibly hard.
It took him almost a decade to get noticed and to be taken seriously as he focused on performing
comedy wherever he could in a bid to land more gigs. As he told The New York Times in 1994,
"For years I used to drive up to Mulholland Drive every night and
look at the city and sit and imagine myself with all this money and being sought after."
He didn't crave material wealth; he just wanted to excel at what he was doing. One time when he
was 15, his father got him a gig at a Toronto comedy club, where he got booed off the stage.
He was wearing a polyester suit that wasn't well-received by the hip crowd. But he didn't give
up, as he tried again two years later, pulling off a considerably better performance with messy hair
and no suit. When he was 19, he started performing in Los Angeles, working day in and day out
until he got noticed by bigwigs like Sam Kinison and Rodney Dangerfield and landed TV roles.
Carrey may have been determined, but that hardly means that things were always easy
for him. Far from it, in fact. As he attempted to break into showbiz,
he endured rejection after rejection. For example, when he auditioned for Saturday
Night Live, he was turned down pretty much immediately. His tape wasn't even shown
to executive producer Lorne Michaels. As Michaels told Vanity Fair in 2015,
"I wasn't at the Jim Carrey audition, but somebody who was there said,
'I don't think Lorne would like it,' and they were probably wrong,
but it doesn't matter. Or maybe they were right — who knows? No one gets it all right."
"I might not be able to make it through the front door like everybody else,
but I'll make it through the basement window. I'll make it through the back door. I'll find a way."
Despite this setback, Carrey eventually became successful. And he even also got
to show off his comedic chops live from New York. He's harbored no ill feelings against
SNL or the people who make it, as he's hosted the show three times and also appeared on the
40th anniversary special in 2015 with an impression of Matthew McConaughey.
"Free will is an illusion. Life is a game that plays us."
And in 2020, Carrey even landed a semi-regular SNL gig with his impression of Joe Biden.
Even as he was starting to make his mark in Hollywood, Carrey still had to deal with plenty
of loss. Both of his parents passed away within a few years of each other, his mother in 1991 and
his father in 1994. Carrey has talked about how his dad indirectly helped him follow his dreams.
His father was immensely talented and could've shone in the entertainment industry himself,
but he was too afraid to take that risk. As Carrey told ABC News in 2014,
"So many of us chose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. My
father could have been a great comedian, but he didn't believe that was possible for him.
So, he made a conservative choice and instead he got a job as an accountant."
The older Carrey was eventually forced to reconsider his options after he lost that
accounting job, which taught his son to look at failure differently. As Jim Carrey sees it,
it's possible to fail at something that seems like a safe option. In the end,
it's a far better idea to fail at something that you love doing and genuinely wish to pursue.
And in Carrey's case, that's acting and comedy.
It isn't just his professional life that's taken its toll on Carrey. To put it mildly,
he hasn't always been lucky in love. He's talked about how his 2004 movie
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which revolves around the tragedy of lost romance,
was something that he could personally relate to. As he told CBS News,
"I was trying to speak to my ex, and all this stuff, and say these things,
and I mean, artistically you do that, you know."
When asked who he was referring to, he simply replied,
"I don't want to say. There are many. There are many that I've felt that way about, you know?"
From 1987 to 1995, Carrey was married to actress Melissa Womer. After their divorce,
he was then briefly married to his Dumb and Dumber co-star Lauren Holly. He was also
seriously involved with Renée Zellweger, whom he was engaged to before they parted ways in 2000.
Afterwards, he dated Jenny McCarthy for almost five years. In 2010, a source told
People Magazine that Carrey can be difficult to be with in a romantic relationship, noting,
"Jim can run hot and he can run cold. He is someone who desperately needs to be with someone,
then just as desperately needs to be alone. But at the same time,
he can be a very loving, very compassionate guy."
In 2015, one of Carrey's ex-girlfriends, makeup artist Cathriona White,
killed herself. He served as a pallbearer at the funeral. Their relationship had its share
of ups and downs, and they had broken up several times, including the week before she passed away.
White was found to have overdosed on prescription drugs, but not everyone was convinced that she
really killed herself. Her estranged husband and her mother accused Carrey of giving her the drugs.
So they sued him, but he responded that this was merely an attempt to take advantage of
his status as a famous actor as he filed a countersuit. After a bit of back-and-forth,
Carrey was finally cleared of all charges, and the lawsuits were dropped in 2018.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts,
please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.
Carrey is no stranger to mental illness. His movie characters may be known for making people
crack up hysterically, but off-screen, the actor has privately fought depression for a long time,
occasionally seeking professional help to cope with his symptoms. He spoke
about his mental journey during a 2004 episode of 60 Minutes. As he revealed,
"I was on Prozac for a long time. It may have helped me out of a jam for a little bit."
Carrey added,
"But people stay on it forever. I had to get off at a certain point
because I realized that, you know, everything's just OK."
In 2017, Carrey revealed that he wasn't depressed anymore, but that he definitely
had experienced it firsthand for many years. He also noted that he still had bad moments
but that they were fleeting and didn't stay with him anymore. In 2019, he had an online
exchange with Ariana Grande after the pop star shared that Carrey's accounts of depression had
helped her cope with her own battles. An honored Carrey replied to her on Twitter,
"I read your lovely mention of me and things I've said about depression [...] I admire
your openness. I wish you freedom and peace. I feel blessed to have such a gifted admirer."
Despite being an incredibly talented and versatile actor,
Jim Carrey has seen his fair share of professional ups and downs. Acting has
recently taken a backseat in his life, though he hasn't totally forgotten his love for the craft.
In 2018, he told the Associated Press that he found acting therapeutic. As he put it,
"It's unfathomable to me that life somehow ended up in this direction and at this place of, you
know, being able to do something - alchemize our pain and turn it into something beautiful and be
recognized as well for it is an incredible thing. But, you know, right now my job has always been,
I thought, to free people from concern and that is part of the job of a comedian, an artist,
but it’s also his job to focus on things that are problematic, you know? At times of trouble."
Carrey also discussed why the frequency of his work had decreased,
as he explained that the industry stopped appealing to him when corporations really
began to make their presence felt. He was tempted to express himself through
another creative medium, so he turned to painting to let his feelings flow freely.
Carrey has always taken his roles very seriously, and sometimes, he's lost himself in them.
For example, when he played comedian Andy Kaufman in 1999's Man on the Moon,
he realized how he could become completely immersed in a character. As he told The-Talks.com,
"When I finished with that, I took a month to remember who I was.
'What do I believe? What are my politics? What do I like and dislike?'
It took me a while and I was depressed going back into my concerns and my politics.
But there was a shift that had already happened. And the shift was, 'Wait a second.
If I can put Jim Carrey aside for four months, who is Jim Carrey? Who the hell is that?'
In the 2017 documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond,
Carrey suggested that he was so immersed in the role of Kaufman that studio executives
actually attempted to bury footage of him at the time to help safeguard his image.
As it turns out, Jim Carrey is hardly what you would call a fan of being famous.
In 2020 he published a novel called Memoirs and Misinformation. It's a fictional autobiography
that explores the idea of fame and the many evils that come along with it.
At one point in the book, Carrey decides to dress up before bed in case he dies in his sleep.
This decision is made after he sees nv of John Lennon's dead body on the internet.
The point Carrey is making is simple: fame is not easy to deal with. As explained to USA Today,
"That's a very weird thing to know about yourself. That when I die,
someone is going to take a picture on the operating table and sell it."
It's also worth noting that while Carrey may have a very recognizable public persona,
he's actually rather private and has always been skeptical about fame.
"I'm fully aware of the hypocrisy that I am living in, and I mean to celebrate it."
Carrey understands that being famous means that he will be
pushed into the limelight no matter what's happening in his life. As he once said,
"I don't believe in personalities. I believe that
peace lies beyond personalities, beyond invention and disguise."
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