Kelsey Grammer Talks Utilizing Alcohol and Cocaine to Deal with Sister’s Homicide

In a brand new interview with PEOPLE, Grammer spoke in regards to the homicide of his late sister, Karen, and the way he turned to medication and alcohol to deal with her tragic dying — one thing he particulars in his new guide, Karen: A Brother Remembers.

Karen was simply 18 in 1975 when she was kidnapped, raped and brutally murdered in Colorado Springs. And whereas her killer, Freddie Glenn, was later convicted, the injury it did to Grammer and their household was everlasting.

Within the wake of Karen’s passing, Grammer struggled with substances, and between 1988 and 1996, he confronted a number of arrests for DUI and cocaine possession, and even checked into the Betty Ford Middle.

“I all the time had one thing at the back of my head saying, ‘Okay. That is sufficient now. Lower it out. You recognize why you are doing this,'” he instructed the outlet. “However there was the opposite a part of me that needed to give up to it and go, ‘Let it mess you up a little bit bit. Let it damage.'”

It is one thing he touched on in a separate interview on Good Morning America, including that it is “exceptional” he survived through the interval in his life, telling Diane Sawyer, he was typically drunk or excessive whereas working.

Even at his lowest, Grammer confirmed as much as set, enjoying Dr. Frasier Crane, first on Cheers from 1984 to 1993 and later Frasier, which ran from 1993 to 2004.

“It appeared to make it extra damning in a approach, however what? I needed to do it, so I am okay,” Grammer instructed PEOPLE. “I realized that I actually am a ‘I do not stop’ sort of man. I can have a look at the previous and see, ‘Oh, nicely, you continue to did what you needed to do.'”

The memoir dives into the darkish particulars of Karen’s homicide, but in addition celebrates the colourful life she lived — one thing Grammer says the world by no means actually received to see.

Portray an image of Karen as a free-spirited and loving girl who made probably the most of each second, Grammer mentioned for a very long time after her dying, the grief was so all-consuming that he “could not entry happiness.”

“The guide helped me get to a brand new place with that,” he instructed the outlet. “I needed to breathe life into her, to welcome her into the world once more.”

Karen is not the one tragic loss within the actor and his household had confronted. His father, Allen Grammer, was murdered in 1968. Simply 5 years after Karen’s dying, his half-brothers, Billy and Stephen, died in a suspected shark assault within the Virgin Islands.

“There is a legacy of early dying in my household,” Grammer mentioned. “I pray to interrupt that cycle.”

Elsewhere within the guide, Grammer returns to Colorado Springs, the place he retraced his sister’s final steps

“She had fallen backward from the trailer door after knocking for assist,” he mentioned of her remaining moments after the assault. “She had been on her knees, crawling her approach. In search of assist along with her final ounce of life.”

“The coroner famous that by a gaping wound in her neck, he might see all the best way into Karen’s lung,” he wrote within the guide. “I had been proper in saying he nearly decapitated her. Freddie Glenn punched holes in my sister’s physique with unimaginable brutality. There have been defensive wounds on her arms.”

Returning to Colorado Springs, nevertheless, helped him lastly achieve some closure on her dying. — although it is a phrase he says he hates.

“I needed to full my farewell to her,” he famous. “I hate the phrase ‘closure,’ however I lastly received to say all of the issues I by no means mentioned.”

“The mission is to heal, however the mission can be to assist different individuals,” Grammer added in his dialog with GMA. “And by introducing them to Karen, it’s my hope that they are re-introducing themselves to the family members they misplaced, in the identical approach.”

Karen: A Brother Remembers hits cabinets Might 6 and is obtainable for preorder now.