Kelsey Grammer Details Using Alcohol and Cocaine to Cope with His Sister's Murder (Exclusive)

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02-05-2025

In a new book and in this week's issue of PEOPLE, Kelsey Grammer discusses how he struggled with alcohol and substance abuse in wake of his sister Karen's brutal rape and murder in 1975
Grammer says he knew he should "cut it out" with his behavior, but part of him "wanted to surrender" and "let it hurt"
Grammer's father Allen was also murdered in 1968, and he lost his paternal brothers in a suspected shark attack
Kelsey Grammer is opening up about the deep and lasting toll his sister Karen's murder took on his life.
In the years after he learned that Karen had been brutally raped and stabbed to death at age 18 in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1975, the actor wrestled with his family's traumatic history (their father Allen had also been murdered seven years prior) and the guilt that he couldn't do more to save his sister.
In his new book, Karen: A Brother Remembers, out May 6, Grammer reveals that he struggled with alcohol and substance abuse, and between 1988 and 1996, he was charged with drunk driving and cocaine possession multiple times. He went to rehab at the Betty Ford Center.
'I always had something in the back of my head saying, 'Okay. That's enough now. Cut it out. You know why you're doing this,'" Grammer, now 70, tells PEOPLE of his addiction in this week's issue. "But there was the other part of me that wanted to surrender to it and go, 'Let it mess you up a little bit. Let it hurt.'"
Related: Kelsey Grammer Reflects on the 'Terrible Loss' and Guilt After His Sister's 1975 MurderEven at the height of his struggles, Grammer forced himself to "get back up in the morning and go to work" playing fussy psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane, first on the NBC sitcom Cheers from 1984 to 1993 and then on his own spinoff Frasier from 1993 to 2004.
"It seemed to make it more damning in a way, but you know what? I had to do it, so I'm okay," he says. "I learned that I really am a 'I don't quit' kind of guy. I can look at the past and see, 'Oh, well, you still did what you had to do.'"
In his new book, Grammer delves into the horrific details of his sister's murder in an effort to "help people" with their own grief journeys.
"For a long time, the grief was so dominant that I couldn't access happiness,' he says. 'The book helped me get to a new place with that.'
It also provided a way for Grammer to make his sister known for more than just the worst thing that happened to her. He paints a picture of Karen as a free-spirited and loving woman who made the most of every moment, whose life was so much more than the way it ended.
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'I wanted to breathe life into her and welcome her into the world,' he says. 'We were Kelsey and Karen, brother and sister.'
Related: The Murder of Kelsey Grammer's 18-Year-Old Sister in 1975 Still Haunts Him: 'It's Always with You'
As children, Grammer and his sister weathered a lot together, beginning with their parents' divorce in 1957 when Kelsey was a toddler and Karen only a few months old. After the split, the siblings moved with their mom Sally, a dancer, from St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands to her parents' home in New Jersey, while their dad Allen, a music shop owner and publisher, stayed behind.
Grammer and his sister didn't see their dad again until 1967. That same year, the siblings lost their beloved maternal grandfather, Gordon, to cancer. A year later, Allen was shot and killed at his home in St. Thomas by a taxi driver amid a wave of racial violence following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The killer was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and it's still not known exactly why Allen was targeted.
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'He was 38 years old when he died, which didn't really hit me until I turned 38 and realized how young he had been," Grammer says. "That's just barely getting started.'
Karen moved to Colorado Springs after a semester at college in Georgia to be with her boyfriend. Grammer last spoke to his sister on June 30, 1975, and she told him she planned to come home to Florida after the Fourth of July.
Related: Kelsey Grammer to Publish Memoir About Late Sister Karen: 'Our Love Is Forever' (Exclusive)
When he didn't hear from her again, Grammer called the local police. He later found out that just hours after he and Karen had chatted, she went to the Red Lobster where she worked at around 11 p.m. to wait for a friend to finish their shift.
A man named Freddie Glenn and two others had planned to rob the Red Lobster, but when they pulled up behind the restaurant, they spotted Karen. With a gun drawn, they told her to come with them. Karen was taken to Glenn's car and was left with him as the other men entered the restaurant and ultimately decided against the robbery. When they returned, they found Karen tied up next to Glenn.
They drove her to one of the men's apartments, where they took turns raping her. The men drove Karen to an alley, where Glenn stabbed her 42 times and nearly decapitated her. Glenn was convicted of Karen's murder and several others in the area.
Related: Kelsey Grammer's 7 Kids: Everything to Know
Tragedy struck the family yet again five years later, when Grammer's paternal half-brothers, twins Billy and Stephen, were killed in a suspected shark attack while scuba diving in the Virgin Islands.
Billy's body was never recovered, and Stephen was found washed up on shore after aspirating into his regulator.
"There's a legacy of early death in my family, which is really interesting,' says Grammer, now a dad of seven. 'I pray to [disrupt] that cycle and give longevity to my family.'
Karen: A Brother Remembers fittingly ends with Grammer's pilgrimage to Colorado Springs to retrace Karen's last steps.
'I had to complete my farewell to her. I had to be there and hold her in the end,' he says. 'It became important to get the closure. I hate clichéd words like closure, but I got the opportunity to say all the things I never said.'
And when Grammer finished writing, his wife of 14 years, Kayte Walsh, was the first person he told.
"She said, 'Well, I've missed you,'' he recalls, tears welling up in his eyes. 'I had to go away for a while — there were hours on end that I would just be staring off. But she was patient and loving through it. I had definitely lost a lot of the joy, and this brought it back for me.'
Karen: A Brother Remembers comes out May 6 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.
Read the original article on People