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Carrie was even born into scandal, as her parents split during one of showbiz's most shameful divorces. She was only two years old when crooner Eddie Fisher dumped her mom
Debbie Reynolds for their close friend
Elizabeth Taylor. The
cruel affair made headlines in 1959, and helped to end Eddie's career on the pop charts. Carrie never forgave
her father's philandering ways, eulogizing him in 2010 by saying: “There hadn’t been a note he couldn’t hit, a girl he couldn’t hit on.”
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She also blasted Eddie for starting rumors that Debbie was a lesbian — as an excuse for leaving her mom for Elizabeth! "I'm totally convinced it's my father," she said. "You should have heard how I reamed into him about starting that rumor."
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Carrie also blamed her father for the bipolar disorder that plagued her life and caused her to spend a career self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. “Having had this illness my entire life, I accommodated it by developing a very big personality,” she said — adding: “My illness took hold when I was 14 or 15 years old," just years before she became a star herself in a very scandalous role.
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The future
"Star Wars" actress first caught Hollywood's eye with a very unwholesome role — playing an underage seductress who lures
Warren Beatty to bed in 1975's "Shampoo." The teen sex fiend doesn't even care that Warren's character is already having an affair with her mother! Audiences were shocked when Carrie asked onscreen: "You wanna f--k?"
Carrie didn't waste any time showing that she didn't share the virtues of Princess Leia, either. By 1981, Carrie was already getting a reputation for wild partying, with The ENQUIRER revealing she was hospitalized for what was officially declared to be "exhaustion, flu and a bronchial virus."
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The hospital stay made Carrie miss the start of filming for the 1981 bomb "Under the Rainbow." She later said of the film's failure: "I was high, so that accounts for some of it!" Carrie had fond memories of the making of movie, too, which was about the cast members playing Munchkins during the filming of
"The Wizard of Oz."As Carrie recalled: "I actually got a lot of my acid from one of the midgets on the movie. When they said 'Stand by,' we all used to say, 'We are standing!' That was probably the height of my drug days, which is perfect" — adding; "I think I was taken from that set in an ambulance!"
Carrie also credited
Cary Grant for helping her
get into LSD: "He was having, at that time, a problem with
Chevy Chase, who said Cary was bisexual, and Cary Grant was suing him. So, when I talked to him, I was able to say, 'Well, maybe he just has trouble with people named Cary' — because I wasn’t getting along with Chevy at the time, either."
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Of course, Carrie's wild Hollywood adventures included a lesbian liaison — although she insisted that it was simply a one-time experiment after her talent agent and live-in lover Bryan Lourd left her for another man. "I made out with a woman," she admitted — adding: "Once. No more than once. It was post-Bryan. But I am not gay."
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Carrie later risked a showbiz feud by trying to warn
Liza Minnelli about her husband
David Gest — as the couple were heading into
a dirty divorce amidst rumors that Gest was gay. Carrie recalled how people tried to warn her about Bryan's double life, even as she had her child Billie Lourd with him: "People were saying, 'Well, I wanted to tell you.' The comments that they were working on for me, Liza's now getting. In fact, I think I gave her one!"
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The star also revealed that she didn't slow down her love life while hitting middle-age. Carrie, then 46, revealed in 2003 that she had been enjoying a live-in boy toy who was young enough to be her son!
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"He was f--ked up about his mother, which made him flirty with me, and we ended up making out in my den and in his bedroom," she said of her 23-year-old lover. "Oh, yeah, maybe there was one time in mine. And a possibly tiny, tragic makeout thing in my car...OK, maybe one of those times was a teeny bit porno."
The ENQUIRER revealed how Carrie tried to settle down with pop star
Paul Simon in 1983 — with the estranged couple deciding to marry when Carrie found out that she was pregnant. "Paul proposed for the 100th time," Carrie told a friend, "and finally, I was able to say 'yes!'" But she then miscarried, and Paul and Carrie split in 1984.
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“My father was a short Jewish man,” Carrie later said. “My husband was a short Jewish man. Go figure.” The ENQUIRER also revealed how Carrie had tried to reconcile with her father in 1980 — but reporters also had the scoop when she finally gave up on Eddie's career after he failed to show up for an audition she'd arranged for him to star on Broadway in "La Cage aux Folles."
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Carrie continued to indulge in drugs, later recalling how she did cocaine on the set of "The Empire Strikes Back." She finally overdosed in 1985 after an attempt to go straight. Carrie's addiction made headlines, and her struggle through rehab inspired her first hit novel "Postcards From The Edge." As revealed by The ENQUIRER, though, Carrie would frequently relapse throughout her career.
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That included a terrifying episode in 1997 that had Carrie sent to a psych ward! Sources insisted that it was simply a "dangerous reaction to prescription medication" that had Carrie committed, but they admitted: "Carrie was shouting at the top of her voice: 'I'm going to the loony bin and no one cares!' She was babbling and frothing at the mouth!" The ENQUIRER found her registered in the psychiatric ward at L.A.'s Cedars- Sinai Medical Center, staying under the name of "Jennifer Collier."
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By 2004, Carrie was insisting that her only addiction was Diet Coke, and said that she was grateful that she only found her favorite drug at the very end of her drug-fueled heyday. After admitting to mostly abusing the painkiller Percocet, the star insisted that she was lucky to only discover the popular drug Oxycontin in the supposed final days of her addictions: "I didn't find that until right at the end. Thank God. I would be major dead."
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But, as revealed by The ENQUIRER in 2005, Carrie never gave up her fast crowd — as she woke up next to a dead man in her bed! The corpse belonged to her gay pal R. Gregory Stevens, who was well known in Washington as an ace political operator for the Republican Party.
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Carrie was stunned when the L. A. coroner linked Stevens' heart failure to the cocaine and oxycodone found in his system. "I would have seen it if he was on a lot of drugs," said Carrie, who'd eventually relapse herself. "I know what it looks like. That's the thing that killed me. I thought: 'How did I miss this?'"
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