This article mentions sexual misconduct and addiction.
Speaking withThe New Yorkerin December 2019, the “True Lies” star reflected on her Hollywood upbringing.
And like any other save-the-marriage baby, I failed."
The “Psycho” star was humiliated, though she too eventually remarried.
Tony would go on to divorce and remarry several more times.
“I have often struggled with the idea of love, what happens to it?”
she wrote in a January 2022Instagrampost.
The caption accompanied a photo of her parents.
Evidently, her father wasn’t as present as other people in her life during her formative years.
While chatting withRolling Stoneback in 1985, Jamie explained evolution of her dynamic with Tony.
“My father was sort of a stranger, then arealstranger, then an enemy.
Now he’s a friend,” she said.
He has always been around and supportive a complete papa."
Another issue that arose in Jamie’s relationship with her dad was his substance misuse.
As she toldVarietyin November 2019, “I did cocaine and freebased once with my dad.
But that was the only time I did that, and I did that with him.
It didn’t last that long.”
Jamie also noted that his relationships with her siblings had their ups and downs, too.
In a November 2019 interview withVariety, Curtis revealed that she got a cosmetic procedure done in 1992.
“I naturally had puffy eyes.
If you see photographs of me as a child, I look like I haven’t slept.
… [The cameraman] said, ‘I’m not shooting her today.
Her eyes are too puffy.’
I did plastic surgery it didn’t work.
It made me feel worse,” Curtis said.
She continued, “Why do you want to look 17 when you’re 70?
I want to look 70 when I’m 70.”
Her brother died from an overdose
Jamie Lee Curtis is one of six children.
“I’ve seen it in my own family.
My brother at 21 is dead from a heroin overdose,” she stated.
“My memory of it was the waiting in that room for the diagnosis.
It is a moment of truth.
I’m incredibly lucky but I’ll never forget that moment,” Curtis remarked.
She continued, “With breast cancer, it’s the concentric circle in our lives.
She suffered from alcohol and opiate addiction
Jamie Lee Curtis celebrated a major milestone in February 2024.
“25 years clean and sober,” she wrote onInstagram.
“One day at a time.
… For all those struggling with addiction and shame, there are others out here who care.
My hand in yours.
Our hands in yours.”
Curtis spoke candidly about her addiction to painkillers and alcohol in a November 2019 conversation withVariety.
This eventually spiraled into a decade of drug misuse.
“I was the wildly controlled drug addict and alcoholic,” Curtis recalled.
“I never did it when I worked.
I never took drugs before 5 p.m. …
I like to refer to it as the warm-bath feeling of an opiate.
I chased that feeling for a long time.”
She kept her addiction a secret from her nearest and dearest for years.
She ultimately got help after a friend walked in on her while she was taking pills.
“I’m stopping what has been a generational issue in my biological family.
It’ll be the single greatest thing I do, if I can stay sober,” she said.
She died from vasculitis, a condition that’s sparked by swollen blood vessels.
The miracle of the movies is that they last forever, in perpetuity,” she wrote.
He was 85 years old.
He also leaves behind fans all over the world."
Jamie has continued to honor her father’s memory of their years.
“Gone but never forgotten.
‘The cat’s in the bag and the bag’s in the river.'”
Her siblings feuded publicly with Tony’s widow over the estate, and the whole ordeal was messy.
He left the majority of his estate to his final wife, Jill Curtis.
Jamie’s sister Allegra Curtis suggested toThe Hollywood Reporterthat something shady was going on.
“[Jill] did not consult us.
This is not what my dad would have wanted,” she claimed.
“Tony was very specific in his wishes,” she toldInside Edition.
While Jamie apparently stayed out of the fray, some of her siblings took legal action against Jill.
The suit was eventually dropped.
“I think I fell prey to that in my early parenting.
“I think I used my work as a way to be there, then be gone.”
Did I ask for it?
Curtis again mentioned the #MeToo movement during a conversation with Melanie Griffith forInterviewmagazine in October 2021.
(In her 2016 memoir, Tippi Hedren claimed she was sexually assaulted by the director.)
“I don’t think Janet [Leigh] would have ever acknowledged if there was any bad behavior.
She was, it’s a bad term, but kind of Pollyannaish about the industry.
I think the #MeToo movement would have really upset her,” Curtis shared.
After the news broke, Curtis shared a few thoughts onInstagram.
He also is the reason I am sober.
I am forever grateful for him for that act of grace alone.
I’m weeping as I write this.
Strange way of saying thank you to a sweet and funny man.
Rest in laughter, Richard.”
A bittersweet tribute to a real-deal Hollywood friend.
