Famous actress Helen Hunt’s real-life tragedy explained

The statistics don’t lie: Helen Hunt is one of the most successful American actresses of the 20th century. After decades of supporting roles in episodic TV shows and teen films, Hunt got his breakout role as the star of “Mad About You,” the hit 1990s NBC sitcom about a newlywed couple. The role of Jamie Buchman earned Hunt four Emmy Awards and three Golden Globes, and then she made the leap into the film industry: she starred in the blockbuster summer film “Twister” and starred opposite Jack Nicholson in “As Good As.” It Gets,” for which she won an Oscar.

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In the 2000s, Hunt consciously reduced her acting work to focus on her personal life. It also needed some attention. For the past 20-plus years, this ’90s sitcom star has been harboring some dark secrets, as her off-screen life has been quietly but clearly full of heartache, scandals, deaths, health problems, and disasters. Here’s a look into the tragic side of Helen Hunt’s personal and professional life.

After dating for around five years, Helen Hunt married her fellow actor Hank Azaria in the summer of 1999. They had even worked together on occasion, with Azaria (best known for his work on the often highly controversial television series The Simpsons). Recurring role as handler of Hunt’s character in “Mad About You”. The two lasted much longer as an unmarried couple than as a married couple – in December 2000, Hunt filed for divorce in Los Angeles. Hunt cited irreconcilable differences as the cause and stated that she and her husband separated about six months ago, meaning the marriage fell apart after about a year.

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Azaria blamed the relationship’s failure in part on professional jealousy – he was in emotional distress because he compared his career to that of his Oscar-winning wife and superstar pal. “It really increases the level of difficulty in your relationship and your career when your wife is Helen Hunt and your best friend is Matthew Perry,” he told Radio Andy in 2017. “We were aware of it, we tried our best to be honest.

After her divorce from Hank Azaria, Helen Hunt entered into another long-term relationship. In 2001, she began a romance with television creator and producer Matthew Carnahan. The partnership produced the couple’s only daughter, but it was also associated with a lot of domestic unrest. Carnahan reportedly left the family home several times but was then welcomed back, and then Hunt asked him to leave again.

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In 2017, Hunt grew tired of the dynamic of the relationship and ended it for good. “The breakup was very messy,” a person familiar with the situation told In Touch Weekly. Hunt was certain that Carnahan had been unfaithful to her, but denied that any cheating had ever occurred, and tried to move on and build a sense of trust with her partner, but ultimately failed. “She had suspected something was wrong for a long time. But he insisted not to betray them,” the friend said.

Helen Hunt comes from a show business family. Her uncle is film and television lighting designer Peter Hunt, her mother is actor BJ Ward and her father was the prolific and acclaimed director Gordon Hunt. Hunt began his career in Hollywood in the 1970s as an animation director at Hanna-Barbera. There he also directed video games, directed motion capture work, did voice work on “Dilbert” and “Saturday Morning Cartoons” and directed episodes of primetime television. Hunt’s most important credit: “Mad About You.” He directed 31 episodes of the sitcom with his daughter, one of which won a DGA Award for Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series in 1996.

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In December 2016, Helen Hunt’s media representative told Variety magazine that her father had died at home after being previously diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative neurological disease that causes tremors and slowly limits the patient’s mobility. Gordon Hunt was 87 years old.

In October 2019, Helen Hunt was among a group of people riding in the back of an SUV through the Mid-City neighborhood of Los Angeles. As the vehicle drove through an intersection and almost completely crossed it, another car entered the intersection from the side and crashed into Hunt’s SUV. It collided with such tremendous speed and force that Hunt’s vehicle began to roll. The actress was in the back seat and was briefly hospitalized along with the other occupants of the car and went home the same day.

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While Hunt could be added to the list of famous people who died in car accidents, the Los Angeles Police Department investigated the accident and declined to press charges against the driver of the other vehicle. Two years later, Hunt’s attorney filed a lawsuit on her behalf against the company that owned the other car, BLS Limousine Service of Los Angeles. Citing personal injury and loss of income due to the injury that prevented her from working, Hunt claimed damages for a negligent act.

A confluence of factors led to Helen Hunt’s decision to take a break from the pursuit of fame and fortune as an actress in the 2000s. She wanted to spend more time with her daughter Matthew Carnahan, Makena Lei, and be a filmmaker responsible for her own films, but she also endured the negative effects of fame. “There were a few years when I was a little scared,” she told the Guardian about the era of her life when photographers followed her. “I was afraid I would never be able to ring that bell.” She assumed that an ordinary, even boring life would eventually convince the paparazzi to leave her alone.

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Hunt also fell victim to Hollywood ageism. As she reached middle age, she seriously tried writing and directing as she was offered fewer and fewer acting jobs. “People say, ‘Oh, you’re shifting towards directing,’ and I say, ‘No, I’m not! Give me a job! I accept anything!’” Hunt told The Daily Beast. “George Clooney is getting sexier every year, people think, but the same rule doesn’t apply to women.”

In 2017, Helen Hunt agreed to be a keynote speaker at the first World Youth Forum, a symposium featuring open dialogues on global issues affecting younger generations. The event, with 3,000 participants, took place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt and was organized in part by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The big problem, according to the global community, is that al-Sisi is accused of being a dictator and committing heinous acts against his political enemies. “If you shake Sisi’s hand, smile, take a photo, let history record that you have chosen to support a dictator responsible for thousands of deaths, arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances,” one said open letter published on Change.org (via the South China Morning Post) and was specifically and scathingly directed at Hunt.

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Other allegations against the al-Sisi regime highlighted in the statement with 100 signatories, mostly human rights activists, include the detention or kidnapping of journalists and members of the LGBT community and the denial of access to more than 400 news outlets. and media sources in Egypt.