Dark Secrets Of 2000s Sitcom Stars

The 2000s were an innovative, creative, and edgy time as far as TV sitcoms are concerned. With numerous cable channels looking to compete with the traditional broadcast networks, small-screen comedy began to explore complex and mature issues, featured a more diverse array of people, and adopted a single-camera, cinematic format, all of which elevated the genre. But it was still an absolute must that above all else, sitcoms in the new millennium had to be funny if they wanted to last. All the iconic sitcoms from this era of TV have at least one thing in common: comically gifted actors who worked hard to get laughs out of their audiences.

TV in the first decade of the 21st century made huge stars out of a lucky few and revived and extended the careers of some long-established small-screen stalwarts. And while they all share a claim on making the 2000s one of the better periods of TV history, many also seem to have endured a significant personal tragedy or a potentially career-ending scandal. They probably would've wanted to keep the details of those ordeals private, but it just didn't happen. Here are the most shocking revelations involving the stars of 2000s sitcoms.

Amidst the controversial history of marijuana legalization, Showtime premiered the satirical sitcom "Weeds" in 2005. Mary-Louise Parker, fresh off of an Emmy Award for the miniseries "Angels in America," starred as Nancy Botwin, a grieving widow and mother of two so desperate to pay her high suburbanite bills that she becomes a marijuana dealer. The role, Parker's first major TV comedy to that point, followed a scandalous and scrutinized period in her personal life.

Parker met actor Billy Crudup when they both appeared in a 1996 Broadway production of the play "Bus Stop." The two were a romantic couple for seven years, and they'd started expanding their family in 2003. Parker was seven months pregnant when Crudup suddenly ended the relationship. He left Parker in order to immediately start a new romance with Claire Danes, his costar in the film "Stage Beauty."

None of the parties involved spoke about the situation for years. In 2004, Crudup preemptively told a New York Times writer to not broach the subject in a feature, as it was "personal, painful, and involves an infant." In her 2015 poetic memoir "Dear Mr. You," Parker recalled taking out her feelings on a cab driver. "I am pregnant and alone. It hurts to even breathe," she wrote (via Jezebel).

Amanda Bynes proved the breakout star of Nickelodeon's children's sketch comedy series "All That," and so she got a spinoff, "The Amanda Show." In 2002, Bynes left that program for her own network sitcom — Bynes spent four seasons on the WB's "What I Like About You."  Bynes' career slowed down after that, and she hasn't acted since 2010's "Easy A." Off-screen, the actor faced significant health problems and legal challenges.

After attempting to pass a police car in West Hollywood late one night in April 2012 and running into it instead, Bynes' BMW was stopped and she was booked and charged with driving under the influence. Four months later, Bynes struck a car in Los Angeles and left the scene; she was charged with hit-and-run for a second time that year, and her license was suspended. Police seized Bynes' vehicle weeks later when she was stopped for driving illegally. In May 2013, New York City police, acting on a tip that the actor was smoking a drug in her apartment building's lobby, entered Bynes' residence and noticed drug equipment, which she tossed out of a window. Also that year, Bynes was legally ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation following a fire-setting incident at her parents' home. Bynes sought treatment for mental health issues, and she entered into a conservatorship to oversee her affairs, an arrangement that lasted for nine years.

Part of the reason why "The Big Bang Theory" is so successful: Kaley Cuoco's portrayal of Penny, one of the sitcom's main characters. Penny didn't appear in two episodes early in the show's fourth season in 2010. When she did come back, she was trying to be a bartender at the Cheesecake Factory where she'd previously been a server. That plot line was born out of necessity — writers had to find a way to keep Cuoco's serious injury hidden behind a large piece of furniture, like a bar.

Cuoco, an experienced equestrian, got hurt during a horse-jumping lesson. "My horse spooked and I wasn't really expecting it, and I fell off," she explained on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." As she attempted to get back on her feet, the still-upset horse tried to jump over Cuoco and missed, landing with its full weight on the actor's leg. Initially, she mistook the crinkling sound for the horse landing on leaves, but it was actually the bones in her leg breaking; Cuoco's appendage was shattered to the point where the leg lacked structure and her foot faced the wrong direction. After she was rushed to an emergency room, a doctor told Cuoco that amputation of the limb was a possibility, but it fortunately never came to that.

"Malcolm in the Middle," a realistically chaotic look at family life told from the point of view of the titular teenage genius, made Frankie Muniz one of the most dominant young TV actors of the 2000s. For his work as the exasperated Malcolm, Muniz earned a nod for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy at the 2001 Emmy Awards, one of the youngest performers ever nominated. Unfortunately, Muniz doesn't remember much, if any, of the 2000 to 2006 run of "Malcolm in the Middle," and large swaths of his life in general. "I've thought about it a lot like over my years of like, you know, why do I have a bad memory?" he told the podcast "Wild Ride! with Steve-O" (via AZ Central). "The only logical thing I can say is, yeah, I've had nine concussions," he added, explaining that he incurred those head injuries from competing in youth sports and auto racing.

The actor doesn't let the missing memories of the past affect his present. "I'm only reminded of how bad my memory is when people I see, they come to me and go, 'Oh, you remember when we did this? Remember we went on this trip to this country?' And I have no recollection of it, but in my head, it's not like I feel bad or sad about it," he told People.

From 2005 to 2013, Rainn Wilson portrayed the unbearable sycophant Dwight Schrute, an unforgettable character responsible for some of the most messed up things that happened on "The Office." The role earned Wilson three Emmy Award nominations and gave him the income to achieve two specific goals: home ownership and closing out his student loan debt. None of that satisfied Wilson. "When I was in 'The Office,' I spent several years really mostly unhappy because it wasn't enough," he told "Club Random with Bill Maher" in 2023. "I'm on one of the great TV shows. People love it. And I wasn't enjoying it." Wilson couldn't understand why the show hadn't launched him to superstardom. "I was thinking about, 'Why am I not a movie star? Why am I not the next Jack Black or the next Will Ferrell?'" he recalled. "I wanted millions. I was a TV star, but I wanted to be a movie star. It was never enough." Wilson was able to get over his feelings by embracing his spirituality. 

The actor also credits therapy for helping him cope with his issues. "I experienced a lot of pain in my life, and a lot of suffering with anxiety and depression and addiction," he told "The Diary of a CEO" podcast (via The Daily Mail). "As I dove into recovery and the therapeutic process, I can pin that squarely on a lot of gross imbalances and trauma that I suffered as a child."

Christina Applegate, star of multiple hit comedies — including "Samantha Who?" — went in for a medical checkup in 2008 and learned that she had breast cancer. After testing positive for a genetic mutation that indicated the cancer would likely return after remission, Applegate elected for a double mastectomy to ward off recurrences. And while dealing with the stress and trauma of a cancer diagnosis and surgery, Applegate was forced to speak out about her illness after her diagnosis was revealed to the public without her consent. The genetic mutation also meant an increased risk for ovarian cancer, and after a cousin died from that illness in 2008, Applegate underwent an elective surgery to have her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed.

In 2021, Applegate, after noticing a lack of feeling in her extremities and having trouble walking short distances, saw a doctor, who diagnosed her with multiple sclerosis. It's a degenerative neurological disease that breaks down the brain's ability to send signals to the rest of the body, causing problems with mobility, balance, and speech. Production of the final season of "Dead to Me" stopped for five months so Applegate could get treatment. As the symptoms of M.S. may grow more unmanageable with time, Applegate is likely retired from live-action acting. "I don't know if I'm going to get worse," the actor told Vanity Fair. "I can do voiceover stuff because I have to support my family and keep my brain working."

Following his turn as a loathsome talk show sidekick on the '90s HBO series "The Larry Sanders Show," Jeffrey Tambor led the cast of Fox's intricate, Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy Award-winning "Arrested Development" (opposite many '00s sitcom stars who died tragically). After portraying corrupt and self-serving real estate developer George Bluth (and his spaced-out twin brother Oscar) for several seasons, Tambor took on the role of Maura Pfefferman, transitioning from male to female late in life on Amazon's "Transparent."

Tambor won two Emmys for his careful, warm, and empathetic work on "Transparent," until Amazon fired the actor in 2018 for his on-set behavior. Costar Trace Lysette accused Tambor of multiple counts of sexual harassment and unwanted touching of a sexual nature; Tambor also reportedly directed unprofessional comments to his assistant, Van Barnes. Tambor claimed he did nothing wrong, and then reports surfaced that he'd been verbally abusive on the set of "Arrested Development" to his TV wife, Jessica Walter. Since the back-to-back scandals emerged, Tambor hasn't landed any new acting work.

"Entourage" was supposed to be about young actor Vincent Chase enjoying his first blush of fame along with his best childhood friends. But the actor who got the biggest boost from the 2004-2011 HBO comedy was Jeremy Piven, a character actor with dozens of credits stretching back to the mid-1980s. Piven won three Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Emmys for playing Vincent's agent, Ari Gold, and parlayed his fame from "Entourage" into starring on CBS' crime drama "Wisdom of the Crowd." That series initially showed some promise in the ratings, but CBS canceled it after airing nine episodes while in the middle of an internal investigation over allegations made against Piven dating back decades.

A woman working as an extra on the 1986 film "Lucas" alleged that Piven attempted to force himself on her in a set trailer; another woman said that in the mid-1990s, Piven pushed her against a wall and attempted to kiss her; and a professional contact detailed a hotel room sexual assault from 2003. Moreover, a model accused Piven of touching her without consent on the set of "Entourage" and again at a private residence; an actor suggested Piven engaged in sexually predatory behavior against her when she was very young; and an adult film actor said Piven exposed himself to her at a 2011 party. Piven denied any wrongdoing. 

Stand-up comic Jeff Garlin made his mark on scripted comedy in 2000, when he took on the role of Jeff Greene, agent and foil to acerbic TV writer Larry David on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," a show that helped save a wrongfully accused killer from prison. Concurrently with that long-running sitcom, Garlin starred on ABC's "The Goldbergs" from 2013 onward, playing irascible '80s dad Murray Goldberg.

Garlin allegedly made the set of "The Goldbergs" a hostile and uncomfortable place to work, indulging in off-color language, emotional outbursts, and unwanted touching, repeatedly and habitually. "He got away with it because he would call himself out for it," an-ex "Goldbergs" staffer told Vanity Fair. "'I'm a hugger. I just love you.'" Garlin attested that he tried to be funny on set, but that his words and actions were taken the wrong way. "My silliness making an unsafe workspace — I don't understand how that is," he told Vanity Fair.

Enough people registered complaints that ABC's human resources department investigated Garlin over the course of three years. After that concluded, Garlin left "The Goldbergs" in what was reported as a decision agreeable to both the actor and the production. Season 9 of the show utilized CGI and a stand-in to allow Garlin's character to appear sporadically; Murray died, off-screen, prior to the start of Season 10.

After scoring nearly 70 acting jobs since 2000 — including six seasons as Sam Puckett on Nickelodeon's kid sitcom "iCarly" and one more on the spinoff "Sam and Cat" — Jennette McCurdy hasn't shown up on screens since 2018. The main reason for that: McCurdy hates acting, as she was pushed into it at a very young age by an allegedly domineering mother. When asked as a child if she wanted to pursue performance, McCurdy recalled in her memoir, "I'm Glad My Mom Died," that there "was only one right answer." McCurdy believed her mother had wanted to be an actor and forced her daughter to live out her dream. The future star was enrolled in a rigorous acting academy, was sent out on auditions, and submitted to her mother's restrictive weight control tactics. "Each Sunday, she weighs me and measures my thighs with a measuring tape," McCurdy wrote (via People), adding that she later developed an eating disorder.

In the early 2000s, McCurdy attempted to walk away from acting, but her mother's poor reaction wouldn't allow it. "She bangs on the steering wheel, accidentally hitting the horn. Mascara trickles down her cheeks. She's hysterical," McCurdy wrote.

After appearing on various family sitcoms as a child actor in the late 1990s, Orlando Brown got in with the Disney Channel tween entertainment machine. He voiced Sticky Webb on the animated sitcom "The Proud Family," and on the 2003-2007 live-action comedy "That's So Raven," he played Eddie, the cocky and bumbling best friend of a teenage psychic.

In the 2010s and 2020s, Brown consistently dealt with a number of legal issues. In 2011, Brown was convicted in California on a charge of driving under the influence, and after he neglected to attend a court-ordered alcohol education course, he was arrested. He skipped the court date over that charge and was arrested once again in 2013 after police in North Hollywood pulled him over on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. About a year later, Brown faced charges of public intoxication and disturbing the peace when he went to the home of a woman he claimed was his stalker and threatened to kill its residents.

In order to keep Brown from having to move into a shelter for unhoused people, Brown's brother took him into his Ohio home in 2022. Two weeks later, police were called to the scene and arrested Brown on misdemeanor domestic violence charges after he reportedly threatened his sibling with a hammer and a knife.

If you or anyone you know needs help with mental health, has been a victim of sexual assault, or needs help with an eating disorder, contact the relevant resources below:

• Contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

• Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

• Visit the National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA's Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741).