Jim Carrey turns 60: his marginal beginnings, the death of a love that marked him and his fight against depression

Change of decade. For many it means just another year of life, for others, an existential conflict. How will Jim Carrey have been surprised by his 60th birthday at this time?

Known for being the first Hollywood actor to pocket $20 million for the film The Cable Guy, in 1996, he is also recognized for his repeated depressions and troubled love affairs. Although Carry confessed in several interviews to having a somewhat withdrawn personality. “I like to keep what I feel to myself, I am very introverted. I like living in isolation”, explained the Canadian, but some believe his decline and depression began with the suicide of his girlfriend Cathirona White and also because of the media war that he had to face when the girl's family accused him of having initiated her into drugs that finally ended her life, in September 2015.

The accusation gained even more force when an alleged letter written by White before his death came to light, in which he maintained that life with the actor had been torture: “I loved life, I was happy with myself and I felt very good. I was proud of all the decisions I had made and I met you. You introduced me to cocaine, prostitution, psychological damage and disease. You did great things for me, but you broke me as a person, Jim. I wanted to get Jekyll, but instead I got Hyde. You kicked me out of your life when you had what was left of me that was worth it.”

“I am shocked and deeply saddened by the death of my sweet Cathriona. She was a true, kind and delicate flower of Ireland, too sensitive for this mud, for whom loving and being loved was all that mattered. My heart goes out to her family and friends, and to everyone who loved and cared for her. We've all been struck by lightning with this news,”, the actor wrote in a statement after the death. Carrey could be seen looking remarkably sad at White's funeral, as he held the crate heading toward his ex-girlfriend's final home.

But the words that Cathriona would have expressed in the farewell letter were used as evidence in the legal battle that her family waged against the actor.

Carrey tried to stay out of all the conflict, but one day said, “I will not stand for this heartless attempt to take advantage of me or the woman I loved. Cathriona White's troubles started long before we met and sadly none of us could have prevented this tragic ending. I really hope that very soon people will stop trying to profit and let her rest in peace.”

Jim is no longer the man with the easy smile, the comedian who made million-dollar grossing movies. Melancholy, certain erratic behavior, and introspection distance him from that actor that many thought they knew. He says he's on a spiritual quest. Those who know him intimately say that this existential vacuum began a long time ago.

As a kid, Jim used to laugh to get his parents' attention. Carrey was born on January 17, 1962 in Ontario, Canada, into a very humble family. His mother, Kathleen Oram , was a housewife, and Percy Carrey , his father, was a man who always wanted to dedicate himself to music, but never succeeded. He had to dedicate himself to formal jobs, leaving his passion in the hobby space.

The actor lived with his parents and two older brothers when, when he turned 12, everything changed: Percy lost his job and the Carreys, their home. They were left homeless. The alternative was improvised. “We lived in a trailer for a while, and we worked as security guards,” Jim said in an interview with journalist James Lipton.

At the age of 16, he dropped out of school: money had to be brought to a house where there was barely enough to eat. And so, Jim went to work. He did everything for months, until he realized that he could get a profit from those artistic qualities that he exhibited in the family and in front of his friends.

Knowing that someone who has nothing can lose nothing, he sent his material to Carol Burnett, one of the most talented and prestigious humorists. He asked her to join her show; he didn't make it. On her father's recommendation, she began performing at the Yuk Yuk's club in Toronto. There she also experienced living in an abandoned car: the few dollars she earned did not allow her to rent an apartment and , in turn, have a plate of food. You had to choose.

At 18 Carrey moved to Los Angeles alone to pursue a career he hadn't even begun. What little he had done was amateurish. But something made him chase that dream. It was him and his confidence, telling him he could make it as an actor, and he didn't stop at his dream.

She started working at The Comedy Store in West Hollywood. Her first performance on North American soil took place on the comedy show In Living Color . That was the kick to begin to grow without brake until in the mid-90s he was already a true movie star.

Legend has it that when he moved to American soil he put a fake check in his pocket for the amount of 10 million dollars. Every time he started a project, he took it with him, because he knew that at some point moment I was going to earn that money. It was a kind of amulet. In 1995, when he was called up for Dumb and Dumber, he charged that amount for his participation.

In his early days as an actor, Jim met his colleague, Melissa Womer, who in the late '80s was working as a waitress while hoping to make it in the world of comedy. crush occurred immediately. On March 28, 1987 they were married and on September 6 of that year, Jane Erin Carrey was born, the only daughter of the actor, who is now betting on making a place for himself in the world of singing.

The young woman, in fact, participated in the 2012 reality show American Idol. But back to the couple, and despite their love, Womer and Carrey divorced in 1995. “He was an extremely depressed person, sometimes he would sit up at night and I would spend Talking to him for hours, giving him advice,” Melissa explained, adding, “He came in one day and told me that he had decided to enjoy success from the perspective of a single man.”

The marriage did not end well, since when they separated they agreed to a sum of 3.5 million dollars and 10 thousand in support for his ex and his daughter, but a decade later, when Carrey was already a consecrated actor, < mark>Womer asked to update that amount. The actor agreed to pay for trips, improvements in his quality of life, and even included a dance studio in his home for a cost of $200,000.

But the lovesick man didn't wait two years to remarry, in 1996, with actress Lauren Holly, his co-star in another of his iconic comedies, Dumb and Dumber . But the love lasted what a sigh. Within a year of walking down the aisle, the marriage was dissolving. “You don't have to be a scientist to know what happened. I think she was involved in our marriage much earlier than she said,” Womer told The Spokesman-Review, sparking the first scandal for the The Mask actor, who only confessed that he wanted to be with a woman he could grow old with.

In that relationship, love did not win either: it only lasted a few months and Lauren took the actor's earnings from two of his most successful films, The Cable Guy and Liar Liar: the not inconsiderable sum of 20 million dollars .

And a new opportunity arrived to finally find a lasting love. With two divorces behind him, the actor met actress Renée Zellweger on the set of Irene, Me and My Other Self. Another crush, and they go...

They got engaged right away and progressed so quickly that the engagement came within a few months. According to the media at the time, Carrey gave her a ring in a London restaurant, by candlelight, where the actress was filming Bridget Jones's Diary.

Anyway, rumors that the wedding was a fading project began to surface when Zellweger asked Carrey not to delay the arrival of that special day any longer. At the publication The Daily Mail even made sure that the actress had given him an ultimatum when he saw that Carrey was increasingly reluctant to say yes for the third time. When she didn't get the desired response, she left the actor, left her home in Los Angeles and went to spend Christmas alone in Hawaii, the destination they had chosen together for their honeymoon. Thus, the relationship ended a year after it began.

Jim Carrey lived on the cusp, until in 2004 when he again faced different problems. The most complex: he was diagnosed with bipolarity and depression. He kept working, flashing his best smile and acting on camera. But behind closed doors, his life turned into chaos.

On the recording sets his colleagues suffered from his bad mood, his change of attitude, which also moved to the sentimental level: he ended up separating from Jenny McCarthy, ex Playboy model. And the depression, which she treated with professionals, would multiply her reach. Then came his relationship with Catrhiona, and a suicide that marked him forever.

Jim Carrey spoke, a couple of years ago, of everything he had to face in this time in which his works were not of the expected magnitude. “I have had to deal with certain deep currents in my life in recent years, and for that reason everything that does not kill me makes me more bitter. Seriously though, you don't let those things get you down and even though from time to time they hit you and leave you a little confused, you always find a way to get out of bad times. The truth is that through all these things I can understand what pain is”.

The humorist, the comedian, has battled depression. And he assures that he has won that hard battle: “Right now I no longer have depression. For years I suffered from it, but now when the storm arrives it's just a storm and it doesn't stay. When an episode comes, it doesn't stay long, it doesn't drown me anymore.”

He feels like a man far from the industry, and he pointed it out: “I don't care what people are going to think of me after I die. All I want is for people to think of me as a man with good energy, as someone who left a good smell behind him.”

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