The Tragedy Of Billy Bob Thornton Is Just Sad

The following article contains references to domestic violence.

Billy Bob Thornton has been recognized at the Academy Awards, Emmys, and Golden Globes, starred in both box office smashes like "Armageddon" and "Bad Santa," as well as cult classics such as "A Simple Plan" and "The Man Who Wasn't There," and achieved success as a screenwriter, director, and even rock musician. But thanks to his turbulent love life, health issues, and reputation as one of Hollywood's most intense artists, his private life has often overshadowed his professional.

In some cases, this has been Thornton's own doing, like the time he courted controversy for criticizing Canadian concertgoers for being "like mashed potatoes without the gravy" (via Today). And many of his five ex-wives haven't exactly painted him as the perfect husband. But much of the actor's personal drama has been inflicted upon him through no or little fault of his own. From poverty-stricken beginnings to numerous family losses, here's a look at the tragic side of his story.

Billy Bob Thornton grew up in a world far removed from the glitz and glamor of Tinseltown. He had something of a nomadic childhood, with his extended family — which included his high school history teacher father William, psychic mother, and brother Jimmy Don — regularly relocating across their home state of Arkansas. And it was an upbringing in which food wasn't always guaranteed to be on the table.

Indeed, Thornton often had to rely on what his grandfather shot in the woods for his daily sustenance. "We had no money, so my grandmother's house was a place of aunts, uncles, cousins — a lot of us living together," Thornton explained to The Wall Street Journal. "We didn't have electricity or running water, just a well. I read by a coal oil lantern."

Thornton has revealed that his humble beginnings have often served as motivation when it comes to his career. After accepting his Best Actor in a Drama Series Golden Globe for "Goliath" in 2017, the actor told reporters (via People), "A lot of people in the entertainment business get called privileged ... I came out here in poverty and spent a decade trying to eat. Those kind of things get to you." He then added that his desire to make a better life for himself was a major driving force in his gradual rise up the Hollywood ladder.

Billy Bob Thornton's 2012 directorial effort "Jayne Mansfield's Car" was an intergenerational family drama in which Robert Duvall's irascible patriarch takes his grandson to see the wreckage of car crashes ... for fun. Remarkably, this macabre pursuit was inspired by the filmmaker's complicated relationship with his own father.

"He would stand there and smoke Lucky Strikes and stare at the car wreck for two hours while my brother and I were like, 'Why are we here?'" Thornton recalled to Today about the bizarre practices of his dad William. "That was how he connected with us."

Sadly, forcing his children to witness the aftermath of fatal automobile collisions was far from the only trauma William inflicted. "My father was a very violent Irishman and so there was abuse both verbal and physical in our household," Thornton said, adding that he didn't think that the veteran of the Korean war ever engaged in a proper conversation with him.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

Like Jennifer Aniston, Whoopi Goldberg, and Salma Hayek, Billy Bob Thornton is a Hollywood star who's often spoken about his struggles with dyslexia. Sadly, the "Monster's Ball" actor wasn't officially diagnosed with the condition until well into adulthood, meaning that his high school years were plagued with accusations that he was simply dumb and work-shy.

"I was just kind of known around school as a moron," Thornton told Express in 2022. "Nobody really encouraged me ... When I was growing up, they just thought I was slow. Teachers thought I was lazy. I never wanted to be anything that school taught me."

Admirably, Thornton was able to use these hardships as a motivating tool for his career. "Dyslexia drives you, because you're trying to overcome this thing," the star said, going on to argue that there's a tendency for those who suffer from the learning disability to overachieve in creative fields "because you compensate in other ways."

Billy Bob Thornton lost his father, William, to lung cancer shortly after graduating high school. And despite the abuse he suffered at the hands of his history teacher father, Thornton chose to take care of him in his final days, a period in which he was plagued by hallucinations so disturbing that the rest of the actor's family couldn't bear to even look.

When asked about his selflessness toward a man who'd regularly beaten him with a belt in an interview with NBC News, Thornton answered, "I felt tortured myself. And I didn't want to see somebody else in that kind of pain." The Academy Award winner also revealed that the harrowing experience shaped the man and the actor that he later became.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Thornton also revealed that it took him a while to process his grief: "At my dad's funeral I didn't cry when my dad died. I did it years later when I forgave him, which I've totally forgiven him and I loved my dad."

Billy Bob Thornton is such a massive baseball fan that each movie contract stipulates that his trailer must be equipped with a satellite dish and TV so that he can watch his beloved St. Louis Cardinals play in between filming. He also provided the narration for their 2006 end-of-year retrospective DVD and played head coach Morris Buttermaker in the 2005 remake of the '70s classic "Bad News Bears." But few know that the Golden Globe winner nearly made it onto the baseball field professionally for real.

Yes, having shown his gift for the sport during his high school years, Thornton tried out for the Kansas City Royals at a Little Rock camp shortly after graduation. Unfortunately, before he'd even got the chance to pitch, his ambitions were cruelly denied. Indeed, while waiting down the first base line for his chance to make an impression, an errant ball hit him squarely in the upper chest. The impact was so severe that it broke the youngster's collarbone, and that was that.

"I guess I was pretty good," Thornton recalled in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette decades later. "I couldn't hit, I was a pitcher with control and a pretty good slider. I think I might have had a chance."

"I've only had a couple of times in my life when I was carefree ... For a couple of years, I felt OK, which is very rare for me. And then he died. I've never trusted happiness since." That's how Billy Bob Thornton addressed the untimely death of his younger brother Jimmy Don on "Oprah's Master Class" (via HuffPost) 27 years after the tragedy.

Jimmy Don, who'd written several songs Billy later recorded for his musical solo career, died in 1988 from a heart condition. And the "Pushing Tin" star admits that he's never been the same since. "I have to really force myself to think that things are going to be OK in terms of worrying about my family, myself or one of my friends ... There's a melancholy in me that never goes away. I'm 50 percent happy and 50 percent sad at any given moment."

However, Billy, who also has a brother, John, ten years his junior, accepts that the grief he still feels is a testament to the bond that he and Jimmy shared. "I don't want to forget what it felt like when he died, because he deserves [that remembrance]. That's how important he was to me." The Oscar winner went on to say that he doesn't think he'll ever get over the loss but that he's now at peace with having such feelings.

In 2011, Billy Bob Thornton's eldest daughter, Amanda Brumfield, was given a 20-year jail sentence after being found guilty of first-degree aggravated manslaughter in the death of a one-year-old girl in her care three years earlier.

Olivia Madison Garcia, whose mother Heather Murphy was a close friend of the convict, had suffered a fatal fracture to her skull and bleeding to her brain while being looked after by Brumfield. Although the latter claimed that the youngster had fallen out of her playpen, the prosecution successfully argued that the injuries weren't accidental.

Brumfield, who was Thornton's estranged eldest daughter from his first marriage to Melissa Lee Gatlin, was freed in 2020. The Innocence Project of Florida had pushed for an early release after claiming that Brumfield had been wrongfully convicted via factually incorrect evidence. But she was instead given her freedom thanks to a plea deal to secure her early release that rested on her agreeing to stop protesting her innocence, one which the IFP claimed (via The Ledger) that "any reasonable person would take."

In 2000, Billy Bob Thornton was admitted to Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Hospital for what his rep claimed was a viral infection, but the tabloids argued it was, in fact, a heart attack. And there were further rumors that whatever type of medical care he received, it was brought on by an unconventional diet.

Indeed, gossip persisted that Thornton had fallen ill due to an orange-only meal plan, which meant that he ate little more than pumpkins, oranges, papayas, and carrots. "I've personally seen him eat a salad, watermelon, and even chicken," his publicist Michelle Bega insisted while refuting the allegations to ABC News. This wasn't the first time, though, that the actor's diet had been called into question.

While trying to make it in Hollywood, a poverty-stricken Thornton ended up needing medical treatment due to his diet. Unable to afford anything but potatoes, the future Oscar winner ended up suffering from heart failure caused by malnutrition. "It was terrible," Thornton told the Tampa Bay Times about this lean period. "If I had known how far away I really was, I would've never left home." And the star has also admitted to once developing an eating disorder: while filming the 1997 thriller "U Turn," he lost 59 pounds eating little more than canned tuna and Twizzlers.

Billy Bob Thornton has been more than happy to discuss his battles with OCD over the years. And there's been plenty to talk about. Indeed, the "Friday Night Lights" star, who recently made headlines for his unrecognizable appearance at the CMA Awards, has more to contend with than dealing with compulsive rituals and intrusive thoughts.

When asked about how it affects him on a daily basis by NBC News in 2004, Thornton explained that he's often left exhausted: "You're constantly doing mathematics in your head ... Certain numbers represent certain people. And I can't use that number in a certain circumstance. And then I have to use it in another circumstance." The actor also revealed that he hadn't sought any professional help, a fact he reiterated while detailing his many phobias in an interview with The Independent that same year.

Komodo dragons, French antiques, and real silver were just a few of the niche fears Thornton admitted to. "I just don't like old stuff. I'm creeped out by it, and I have no explanation why," he remarked. While he can't explain these particular bugbears, the star does believe that his OCD stems from his difficult upbringing.

2003 was a particularly difficult year for Billy Bob Thornton because three of his close friends, all of whom he'd recently collaborated with, died in quick succession. "It sure does bring it all home to you," the actor told The Herald-Times at the time. "Because when we were 25, we didn't think about this kind of stuff. Now, it's like your friends are dropping like flies all around you, it's right in your face."

Firstly, singer-songwriter Warren Zevon, whose final studio effort "The Wind" Thornton had worked on, died from mesothelioma. "It was just so fantastic to meet somebody else who had obsessive-compulsive disorder," the actor recalled about their introduction in the late 1980s. "Because he saw me taking my mail out, putting it back in, taking it out and locking it twice. And he said, 'So you got that too, huh?'"

Then, just four days later, John Ritter, who Thornton had co-starred with in the 1992 sitcom "Hearts Afire," directorial debut "Sling Blade," and "Bad Santa," died from a previously undiagnosed heart condition. And just 24 hours after this sudden loss, Johnny Cash died of complications from diabetes. The country legend had been a big fan of Thornton's films "U Turn" and "Daddy and Them" and became firm friends, even duetting in the studio together. In fact, Cash was due to record Thornton's song "Private Radio" before his passing.

Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie were one of the more — erm — interesting showbiz couples at the turn of the century. Who can forget how they freely admitted to carrying each other's blood in a vial around their neck, for example? Of course, such an intense relationship raised questions about longevity, and just two years after walking down the aisle together, the semi-vampiric celebs headed for the divorce courts.

Perhaps surprisingly for someone who doesn't seem to usually have any problems with confidence, Thornton has admitted that the biggest problem in their marriage was the fact he "never felt good enough for her." Indeed, in a candid interview with GQ 14 years on — by which point the actor was on wife number six Connie Angland — he revealed that Jolie's much more social nature eventually took its toll.

"I'm real uncomfortable around rich and important people," Thornton said, also acknowledging that while his ex-wife was always attending important meetings with adoption agencies or the United Nations, he just wanted to chill out at home. Unlike Brad Pitt, the "Primary Colors" actor has managed to stay friends since splitting with Jolie, and the pair will catch up every few months. In fact, the "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" star still sends Christmas presents to Thornton's son Harry. 

So, it seems that marriage No. 6 has been the most successful for serial monogamist Billy Bob Thornton. After marrying and then divorcing (deep breath) Melissa Lee Gatlin, Toni Lawrence, Cynda Williams, Pietra Dawn Cherniak, and Angelina Jolie, the "School for Scoundrels" star finally looks to have found 'the one' in the form of Connie Angland.

Indeed, the pair have been happily wed since 2014, a feat even more impressive when you learn that make-up effects artist Angland first met Thornton at his lowest ebb. While appearing on "The Drew Barrymore Show" in 2024, the Oscar winner revealed (via Yahoo! Entertainment) that the pair first connected on the set of 2003's festive classic "Bad Santa," a period he described as "When I needed somebody to meet me, because I was going through kind of a lost weekend, you know what I mean?"

Thornton didn't go into too much detail about this lost weekend, although he has revealed that he was regularly inebriated while filming the festive classic. "We were together within probably a couple of months maybe," the star recalled about how their relationship blossomed. "Yeah, she kind of drug me out of the gutter, which was awesome ... We've been together longer than if you totaled up all the other five [marriages]."