The Tragedy Of Helen Hunt Explained

The stats don't lie: Helen Hunt is one of the most accomplished American actors of the 20th century. After decades of small and supporting parts in episodic television and teen films, Hunt broke out as the star of "Mad About You," the hit '90s NBC sitcom about a newlywed couple. Playing Jamie Buchman netted Hunt four Emmy Awards and three Golden Globes, and then she made the jump to films, leading the blockbuster summer movie "Twister" and acting opposite Jack Nicholson in "As Good As It Gets," winning an Academy Award for her efforts.

In the 2000s, Hunt willingly scaled back on acting to focus on her personal life. It needed some attention, too. Over the past 20-plus years, this '90s sitcom star harbored some dark secrets, as her off-screen life has quietly but significantly been fraught with plenty of heartbreak, scandal, death, health issues, and disaster. Here's a look into the tragic side of the personal and professional life of Helen Hunt.

Following a dating period of around five years, Helen Hunt married fellow actor Hank Azaria in the summer of 1999. They'd even worked together on occasion, with Azaria (best known for his work on TV's frequently highly controversially plotted "The Simpsons") recurring as Hunt's character's dog walker on "Mad About You." The two lasted far longer as an unmarried couple than they did as a married one — in December 2000, Hunt filed for divorce in Los Angeles. Listing irreconcilable differences as the cause, Hunt noted that she and her husband had separated about six months prior, meaning the marriage fell apart after only about a year.

Azaria blamed the demise of the relationship in part on professional jealousy — he was in a bad place emotionally because he compared his career to that of his Oscar-winning wife and superstar pal. "It makes the degree of difficulty in the relationship and in your own career go way up, 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 absolute best to be honest about it."

Following her divorce from Hank Azaria, Helen Hunt entered into another long-term relationship. In 2001, she started a romance with TV creator and producer Matthew Carnahan. The partnership led to the couple's only daughter, but it was also fraught with a lot of domestic turmoil. Carnahan reportedly moved out of the family home multiple times, only to be welcomed back, and then Hunt would again ask him to leave.

By 2017, Hunt had tired of the dynamic of the relationship and ended it for good. "The breakup was very messy," an individual familiar with the situation told "In Touch Weekly." Assured that Carnahan had been unfaithful to her, but with him denying that any cheating ever took place, Hunt attempted to move on and develop a sense of trust for her partner, but was ultimately unable. "She had been suspicious for a long time that something was wrong. But he insisted he didn't betray her," the friend said.

Helen Hunt comes from a show business family. Her uncle is film and TV lighting designer Peter Hunt, her mother is actor B.J. Ward, and her father was prolific and acclaimed director Gordon Hunt. Beginning his career in Hollywood as an animation director at Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, Hunt would also direct video games, manage motion capture work, perform voice work on "Dilbert" and Saturday morning cartoons, and helm episodes of primetime television. Hunt's most dominant credit: "Mad About You." He directed his daughter in 31 episodes of the sitcom, and in 1996, he won a DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy series for one of them.

In December 2016, Helen Hunt's media rep told Variety that her father had died at home, after having earlier been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a degenerative neurological condition that causes tremors and slowly removes a patient's mobility. Gordon Hunt was 87 years old.

In October 2019, Helen Hunt was among a group of people riding in the backseat of a sport utility vehicle traveling through the Mid-City neighborhood of Los Angeles. As the vehicle proceeded through and nearly passed all the way through an intersection, another car entered the intersection from the side and slammed into Hunt's SUV. It collided with such tremendous speed and force that it rolled Hunt's vehicle. The actor was in the backseat and, along with the other occupants of the car, she was briefly hospitalized and went home the same day.

While Hunt could have joined the list of famous people killed in car crashes, 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 lawyer filed on her behalf a suit against the company that owned the other car, BLS Limousine Service of Los Angeles. Citing personal injury and alleging a loss of income due to injury that prevented her from working, Hunt requested damages paid over what amounted to an act of negligence.

A confluence of factors led to Helen Hunt's decision in the 2000s to take a break from pursuing fame and fortune as an actor. She wanted to spend more time with her daughter with Matthew Carnahan, Makena Lei, and be a filmmaker in charge of her own movies, but she also bore the negative effects of celebrity. "There were a couple of years when I was a little spooked," she told The Guardian of the era of her life when photographers would follow her around. "I was afraid that I could never unring that bell." She figured leading an ordinary, even dull life would eventually make the paparazzi leave her alone.

Hunt also fell victim to Hollywood ageism. When she reached middle age, she gave writing and directing serious tries because she was being offered fewer acting jobs. "People say, 'Oh, you're making a shift into directing,' and I say, 'No, I'm not! Give me a job! I'll take anything!" Hunt told The Daily Beast. "George Clooney is sexier and sexier every year, people think, but the same rule doesn't apply to women."

In 2017, Helen Hunt agreed to be a featured speaker at the first World Youth Forum, seemingly a symposium featuring open dialogues about global issues affecting younger generations. Set to be attended by 3,000 people, the event was presented in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and put together in part by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The big problem, according to the world community, is that al-Sisi has been accused of being a dictator and committing heinous acts against his political enemies. "As you shake hands with Sisi, smile, take a photo, let history note that you chose to support a dictator responsible for thousands of deaths, arbitrary detentions, and disappearances," read an open letter posted to Change.org (via the South China Morning Post) and addressed specifically and damningly at Hunt.

Among the other charges against the al-Sisi regime highlighted in the statement with 100 signatories, mostly human rights activists: imprisoning or abducting journalists and members of the LGBT community, and denying access in Egypt to more than 400 news and media sources.