Things That Came Out About Bruce Lee After He Died

While Bruce Lee had found success as an actor and martial artist before he died on July 20, 1973, aged 32, it was after his untimely and mysterious death that he went from an up-and-coming talent to a worldwide icon. Since he died before becoming a truly A-list star, and considering this was well before the internet allowed fans to research every little thing about the celebrities they adored, there has been a steady stream of revelations about Lee since his death that came as a surprise to the general public. 

It helps that so many people who worked with Lee during his relatively short career, as well as his wife, Linda, have been willing to go on the record and talk about what Lee was like and what he got up to both on set and in his personal life. You always have to take recollections from that long ago with a grain of salt, but while the details might not be completely accurate, they do reveal some funny, shocking, and tragic things about the actor. Here are some of the most interesting things that came out about Bruce Lee after he died.

Because they were two famous athletes at the peak of their talents, many people in the early 1970s wanted a particular fight: Bruce Lee vs. Muhammad Ali. The fact that they were trained in two totally different disciplines wasn't an issue for the fans, who were sure it would be an epic matchup. Lee appreciated Ali's talents enough to study tapes of his 1966 boxing match against Cleveland Williams to get inspiration for the climactic fight scene in "The Way of the Dragon."

Robert Clouse, the director of that film's sequel, "Enter the Dragon," says there was more to watching these tapes than just creating awesome fight scenes. Lee was obviously aware that fans were dreaming of a bout between the two iconic men. "Everybody says I must fight Ali someday," Lee said, according to Clouse. "I'm studying every move he makes. I'm getting to know how he thinks and moves" (from "The Making of Enter the Dragon," via Mass Appeal).

But while Bruce Lee was proud of the fact that he was an elite athlete when it came to martial arts, he was not delusional. He understood the reality of what would happen if he, a 5-foot-7-inch, 145-pound man fought the 6-foot-3-inch, 210-pound boxer: "Look at my hand. That's a little Chinese hand. He'd kill me." So while Lee's untimely death put an end to the speculation the pair would spar, it sounds like he never would have agreed to it anyway. 

Bruce Lee knew how good his shredded physique looked on film, and he took extreme steps to get that look. According to his wife, before he died, Lee was living on what was essentially a liquid diet. His food intake was almost completely limited to carrot and apple juice. While this was obviously not healthy and could have done damage to him long-term, there is a theory that it had a far worse and much quicker effect on him than that.

Lee's death was due to swelling of the brain, but the big mystery has always been what caused such a severe symptom in someone so young and seemingly healthy. Officially, it was due to an allergic reaction to some headache medicine he took, but there are several other surprising theories on the cause of Bruce Lee's sudden death. One is that his excessive intake of water and other liquids is what killed him. Not only was he on a liquid diet, but he was in a very hot and humid environment in Hong Kong, as well as a heavy marijuana and hash user, all of which would cause him to feel thirsty. Excessive consumption of liquids could have damaged his kidneys, which meant too much water stayed in his body, leading to brain swelling.

The producer of "Game of Death," Raymond Chow, was with Lee when he died and remembers him getting overheated before having some water. Chow says Lee got dizzy, went to lie down, and died.

Bruce Lee married his wife Linda on August 17, 1964. She was already pregnant, which might account for why they got married so quickly. Having a wife and daughter (and a few years later, a son) at home didn't stop Lee from his lothario ways, however, and he didn't wear a wedding ring. 

He had a steady stream of girlfriends up until he died. He kept the fact he was a married father from actor Thordis Brandt, who was shocked when she found out after months of dating. Sharon Farrell remembers Lee as a boyfriend in glowing tones. And Lee's frequent co-star Nora Miao has admitted the two had an affair when they were working together. While the wider world might not have known what a lady's man Lee was until after he died, many of those around him were well aware. Betty Ting Pei says that not only was she always with him in Hong Kong, but everyone on set there knew the pair was dating.

While Pei was single while she was seeing Lee, many of his other mistresses were not. Brandt had been in a relationship with her future husband, the actor James Arness, for years. After Farrell moved on to dating Bruce Lee's good friend, Steve McQueen, Lee arrived on set and tried to win her back. Even though she refused, he tried again a couple of years later, giving her his number when they ran into each other shortly before his death.

Recreational drug use is perhaps not something you would immediately associate with someone whose career was built around his physical fitness. But Bruce Lee's friends remember him as someone who loved to party and was often misusing drugs. His drug of choice was weed, although he later moved on to hash. One time, Lee came to a friend's house with joints the size of cigars and passed them out to everyone there. Another friend remembers Lee eating hash brownies at the end of a workout. He also used harder drugs, including cocaine and LSD. Publicly, though, he claimed martial arts was the better, more natural high.

Aside from the stories of his friends and associates, proof of Lee's drug use was found in an unexpected place. Around 2020, someone discovered a cache of letters written by Lee at a flea market. They were eventually auctioned off for $160,000. Many were written to the actor Robert Baker, who, based on their correspondence, seemed to function as Lee's drug dealer. 

Like many drug users, Lee seems to have wanted to stop taking them, at least at one point. In one letter he wrote (via Far Out), "I told Linda to call you to forget about the 'stuff' because I really don't need them in my training. I feel that I have 'gained' in trying them, but the excessive indulgence of them just isn't in my road in Jeet Kune Do."

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Whether a man is circumcised depends on many factors, including the culture or religion he was raised in. In the majority of cases, the procedure is done on infants, but while Lee was born in San Francisco, he did not undergo circumcision as a child. This made sense considering his family's heritage, as Hong Kong has had a circumcision rate of around 10% for the past two generations. However, this made him a minority in the United States, where 83% of boys and men were circumcised in the 1960s. Once he was involved in sexual relationships with women, this was something that apparently bothered Lee.

He decided to undergo the procedure as an adult, but even stranger, he decided to do it in Hong Kong instead of the U.S. A 1994 biography stated that it was actually his father who insisted Lee get circumcised, but as this makes far less sense than that the actor decided to do it himself — probably after one of his American girlfriends commented on it — and biographer Matthew Polly believes this came from a mistranslation of Cantonese. In Polly's version of events, Lee was visiting Hong Kong at the age of 22 when he surprised the male members of his family and one of his students by telling them that he had just been circumcised. Lee then showed them the results, and they were shocked and confused. After a few days of rest and wearing loose pants, Lee was healed.

Bruce Lee had an obsessive desire to succeed in Hollywood, and it resulted in him pushing himself way too hard in his final years. His wife Linda told biographer Matthew Polly about the punishing pace Bruce was keeping in the period before he died. She said, "I tried to talk him into easing up, but he would cut me short by saying, 'The biggest detriment to relaxation is to say: I must relax.' By this stage, he had convinced himself that he was relaxing when he was working" (via "Bruce Lee: A Life").

Over the course of two years (some sources say as little as two months), Bruce's weight had dropped from about 140 pounds to about 120. The problem was that it wasn't fat that he was losing, since as you can see in his earlier films, there was no fat on him even at 140 pounds. So his body was losing muscle mass, which is much more unhealthy and could be a sign something is wrong. Friends who saw him during this time remember him being constantly tired, his eyes dilated, and his skin had a gray color to it. Bruce would admit that he was working too much and that it was affecting his health, but he didn't actually do anything about it.

On top of his regular drug use, friends noted that Bruce was increasingly drinking to excess far more than he previously had. One said he would drink up to 20 bottles of sake a night.

Accusations of plagiarism are not something people make lightly. For one, they require proof, and they can destroy someone's career. In those cases regarding Bruce Lee, any likely plagiarism was actually due to decisions made by others, but there seems to be a general agreement among experts that some of the most powerful Bruce Lee quotes, sayings, and philosophies for which he would become famous were lifted or heavily inspired by other, unattributed sources. 

Dr. James Bishop studied Lee's writings and concluded, "Make no mistake – Bruce Lee was a plagiarist. I take no satisfaction from saying that, but it is nonetheless true" (via Passionate Minds). Matthew Polly, the author of the definitive biography on Lee, told Kung Fu Tea, "I ... believe that, while Bruce borrowed language and imagery ... he was genuinely trying to describe a similar spiritual epiphany. But the issue still bothers me..."

After he died, however, the issue was compounded by others. Lee kept a notebook where he wrote down random things that came to mind, including famous quotes by others, but he did not always attribute them. This was understandable since it was just a personal journal. But when that journal was published posthumously, many of those quotes mistakenly became attributed to Lee himself. Another example is an interview Lee gave where he quotes one of his character's lines, which is often cut down in documentaries to leave off the interviewer's question, making it look like Lee is claiming a writer's dialogue as his own philosophy. 

While many people are aware of the mysteries surrounding Bruce Lee's death, what you probably don't know is that he almost died just two months before, and in exactly the same way. Since he survived, we know what caused his symptoms the first time: heatstroke. This led biographer Matthew Polly to conclude that Lee probably eventually died from heatstroke as well.

The first incident took place on May 10, 1973. It was a warm day in the always hot and humid Hong Kong. Lee was in a sound booth dubbing lines for one of his films, and while the room did have air conditioning, it had to be turned off so as to not ruin the noise on the takes. This meant he was in a small, hot, stuffy, humid room working for an extended period of time. Complicating matters was the fact that just weeks before, Bruce Lee had his armpit sweat glands removed. While this might have meant he would look better on film, it was not helpful when his body was overheating.

Lee felt unwell and escaped to a bathroom, where he fainted. He was discovered by a stagehand, fainted again, went into convulsions, and had difficulty breathing. He was drenched in sweat and burning up. Fortunately, on this occasion, he was rushed to the hospital immediately and was treated in time, but barely. He was unconscious for over two hours. Lee later told his wife that he could feel how close to death he had been.

Perhaps the strangest thing to come out about Bruce Lee after he died was an admission from the director Roman Polanski. He had been introduced to Lee through his wife, Sharon Tate, after which Polanski became one of the Jeet Kune Do teacher's students. Then, in August 1969, Tate and four others were murdered in her home by members of the Manson Family. For three months, the investigation dragged on, and Polanski was desperate for leads. He had convinced himself that it must be someone they knew. 

Not only was Lee a friend, but he lived only a few miles away. Then, during a Jeet Kune Do lesson after the murders, a passing comment made Polanski think Lee could be the killer. The actor mentioned he had lost his glasses. Polanski knew that one of the pieces of evidence left at the scene was a pair of glasses. Plus, as Lee biographer Matthew Polly explained to Esquire, "Bruce was the only person [Polanski] knew personally who had the physical skills to hurt a bunch of people at once. Bruce was the toughest guy he knew, and Bruce knew weapons."

Polanski offered to buy Lee new glasses, and they went together to order a pair. It was only when Lee said what prescription lenses he needed — which was totally different than those left at the scene — that Polanski mentally crossed him off the list of suspects. He never told Lee he'd thought he might be a killer.

On the day Bruce Lee died, July 20, 1973, he was dealing with business in Hong Kong. In the middle of the day, before a planned meeting with actor George Lazenby, Lee went to the house of his girlfriend, the actor Betty Ting Pei. After that, we only have the accounts of Pei and producer Raymond Chow as to what happened, but it seems Lee felt unwell, took one of Pei's headache pills, laid down to rest, and eventually died.

However, when Lee's death was announced to the public, the story was changed to make it less scandalous. Instead of being with his mistress, Lee's friend, the producer Zou Wenhuai, claimed the actor had been with his wife Linda at their own home. Pei claims not to know why Zou lied and says she was not told about the decision to try to cover up their relationship. Of course, the truth was quickly revealed, and while the denials over an affair continued for decades, Pei eventually admitted she and Lee were in a relationship.

Pei says that the suspicions of Lee's fans that she had something to do with his death because he died at her home essentially ruined her life and led to her giving up her career at just 38 years old. She told The Sunday Morning Post, "He died next to me, I was only 26, a young woman. Do you think I wasn't scared? No one would help me. I felt everyone wanted me to die."