Tragic Details About The Cast Of Chicago P.D.

This article includes references to sexual harassment and assault, child abuse, addiction, and mental health struggles.

The "One Chicago" franchise has been a staple on screens for over a decade. Launched by the inaugural procedural, "Chicago Fire" in 2012, it wasn't long before "Chicago P.D." followed hot on its heels. The series, which follows a group of law enforcement officers working out of the city's 21st District precinct, was introduced to viewers through a backdoor pilot in the "Chicago Fire" episode "Let Her Go," which was the penultimate installment of the firefighting drama's first season.

"Chicago P.D." follows the personal and professional lives of uniformed patrol officers and the prestigious Intelligence Unit, headed up by Hank Voight (Jason Beghe). Alongside Beghe, the show's mainstays include Amy Morton, Patrick John Flueger, Marina Squerciati, and LaRoyce Hawkins. "Chicago P.D." has welcomed a number of familiar faces and guest stars over the years — such as "The Mandalorian" star Carl Weathers — and there have also been some dramatic exits from fan favorites like Sophia Bush and Jesse Lee Soffer, who together made up the beloved couple "Linstead."

The police drama regularly entertains fans with high-energy action, but it has also devastated them with some truly tragic storylines — like the deaths of Nadia Decotis (Stella Maeve) and Alvin Olinsky (Elias Koteas), which reverberated through the show for seasons to come. Of course, it's this combination that has kept the series on the air for so long and allows it to consistently maintain a spot in the top ten of returning network dramas currently on the small screen. However, like many TV shows, the drama and tragedy of "Chicago P.D." has spilled off the screen and into real life. Keep reading for a closer look at the tragic details about the cast of "Chicago P.D."

Even before he landed a starring role in the "One Chicago" franchise, Jason Beghe had plenty of experience playing cops on TV. He portrayed Detective Sergeant Roger Skaggs in "Quantum Leap," FBI Agent Vince Ryan in "The Lyon's Den," Special Agent Randall Day in "The Inside," and Detective Jake Keating in "Prime Suspect." These roles were simply preparation for what would become the defining role of his career: Hank Voight in "Chicago P.D."

Beghe has captivated viewers with his portrayal of the morally gray Intelligence Unit boss, but a serious accident almost prevented him from ever being considered for the part. Back in 1999, Beghe was involved in a serious road accident that left him fighting for his life. Detailing the incident to The Daily Beast, Beghe said: "I was in a very serious car accident in '99 — broke my neck, my back in a couple of places, all of my ribs, both of my lungs. I was in a coma for three and a half weeks. When I would come out of the coma, since I was intubated from being on life support, I would pull the tube out and it made it even more f***ed up."

He later told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he flatlined while in the coma, so he was actually dead for a few moments. It seems the situation was touch and go for a while, but eventually, Beghe recovered from his injuries.

Sophia Bush had one of the most dramatic cast exits in the "One Chicago" franchise, both on and off the screen. After playing Detective Erin Lindsay for the first four seasons of the show, her character makes an explosive departure by accepting a job with the FBI, and in, turn ending her fan-favorite relationship with Jay Halstead without so much as a goodbye. However, behind the scenes, Bush was struggling with her role on the show. Four years into her seven-year contract, she knew she couldn't keep going.

"I programmed myself to tolerate the intolerable," Bush admitted on the "Armchair Expert with Dax Shepherd" podcast before revealing that she was assaulted on set. Bush, who was previously subjected to sexual harassment from her boss while filming "One Tree Hill," said she endured "a consistent onslaught, barrage of abusive behavior" while filming "Chicago P.D." She claimed that she was assaulted on set in a room full of men, with none of them coming to her defense.

At the beginning of Season 4, Bush, who still wanted to work on the show, sat down with her bosses, who she had informed of the situation, and demanded the work environment change by the end of the season. When nothing did, "I said, 'OK, so you can put me in the position of going quietly of my own accord or you can put me in the position of suing the network to get me out of my deal and I'll write an op-ed for The New York Times and tell them why,'" she explained.

Benjamin Levy Aguilar joined the cast of Chicago P.D. at the end of Season 9. His character, Dante Torres, joins the Intelligence Unit temporarily as he's on loan from the Bureau of Patrol before joining the team permanently. Like his character, Aguilar has a sad backstory. But, unlike Dante, who suffered child abuse at home, the actor came from a loving family. Sadly, though, Aguilar was left devastated when his father, Jeff Levy, died during his teenage years.

At the time, Aguilar was playing soccer at a high level. By age 11, the Guatemala native had been recruited by AC Milan to play in their youth team in Italy. He turned to the sport after his father's death, telling NBC Sports: "Football saved my life ... It got me through the toughest parts of my childhood." Unfortunately, Aguilar was struggling to deal with his grief at such a young age while living away from home, and the situation only worsened.

He revealed that he hoped to turn his passion into a professional career. "I was actually really good. But to be honest, I think it was actually hard to be away from my mom at that age. My father had just passed away and I just couldn't seem to stay there alone." Ultimately, the decision about his football career was made for him as he had to stop playing after suffering a serious femur injury.

Michael Gaston crops up a few times on "Chicago P.D." as Chief Patrick O'Neal, though he's probably better known for his role as Mark Sampson in Prime Video's dystopian series "The Man in the High Castle." Much of Gaston's recent filmography falls into the category of action drama, with roles in the Mark Wahlberg-led feature "Spenser Confidential" and series like "Power," "Jack Ryan," and "Treadstone." However, Gaston actually started off his career in the theater. Unfortunately, he experienced sexual harassment at the hands of one of his directors.

In 2017, more than 25 years after it happened, Gaston took to Twitter to reveal that he was groped by the unnamed director in the presence of his assistant and a stage manager. He revealed that he tried to laugh it off at the time but internally struggled to deal with the aftermath. "I was terrified. And I was humiliated. I had violent fantasies about the man for years," he wrote (via Vanity Fair).

After learning that two other actors he knew had experienced similar harassment by the director, Gaston felt he had to come forward about his experience. "It really, really affected us in lots of different ways, I think," Gaston said. But putting what happened into words was terrifying for the actor. "I might have just stopped and not done it, if I'd thought about it more — but in the moment, my heart was pounding ... Just as I was writing, you know, I really felt hot and short of breath. And it was 25 years later," he added.

"Chicago P.D." fans will know actor Anne Heche best for playing First Deputy Superintendent Katherine Brennan in Seasons 5 and 6 of the drama. But Heche, who also notably appeared in "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "The Brave," earned a name for herself off the screen as much as on it. The actor was a vocal mental health advocate, often speaking about her own experiences. Unfortunately, she alleged that she was the victim of horrific abuse as a child.

Speaking on Barbara Walters' news show "20/20" in 2001, Heche revealed her father Donald Heche, who died from AIDS when she was 13, began assaulting her when she was a toddler. "He raped me ... he fondled me, he put me on all fours, and had sex with me," she said (via ABC News). In a statement, her mother, Nancy Heche, denied her daughter's allegations.

Anne Heche revealed that she struggled with her mental health as a result of her childhood trauma, leading her to turn to drugs and alcohol to cope. She later developed a cocaine addiction, which sometimes led to her getting behind the wheel of her car while under the influence. On the night of August 5, 2022, Heche was involved in two minor accidents, one with a garage door and the other with another vehicle before a near-fatal collision. The accident caused a fiery blaze, which set her vehicle and a nearby property alight. Heche was recovered from the vehicle and made it to hospital, where she spent over a week in hospital before succumbing to her injuries on August 14.

Marjorie "Markie" Armstrong Post enjoyed a varied filmography during her busy, almost 40-year-long acting career. She was best known for playing Terri Michaels in ABC's '80s action-adventure series, "The Fall Guy," but continued booking roles well into her 60s. One of the most notable appearances of her later career is playing Erin Lindsay's estranged biological mother, Barbara "Bunny" Fletcher. She made recurring appearances on the show from 2014 to 2017, with her character often cropping up to cause more personal and professional drama for Erin.

Post continued working after her time on "Chicago P.D." came to an end, starring in the Lifetime holiday movie "Christmas Reservations" and guest-starring on "The Kids Are Alright," even in the wake of her cancer diagnosis, which she received at the end of 2017. Sadly, she died on August 7, 2021, at age 70, from complications related to the disease.

Her family released a tender tribute to the actor, celebrating not just her career but her life with them. "But for us, our pride is in who she was in addition to acting; a person who made elaborate cakes for friends, sewed curtains for first apartments and showed us how to be kind, loving and forgiving in an often harsh world," her family said (via CNN).

After a decade of smaller roles, Mykelti Williamson hit the big time in the early '90s by starring in "Free Willy" and "Forrest Gump." Williamson's packed filmography makes it look as though the "Designated Survivor" alum continued working steadily without a hitch after that success. He notably appears in the fourth and fifth seasons of "Chicago P.D." as corrupt police department auditor, Lieutenant Denny Woods. But in the late '90s, there was an unforeseen interruption as he actually became embroiled in a high-profile court case.

In January 1998, Williamson was arrested for allegedly stalking and stabbing his ex-wife's partner, Leroy Edwards. The attack happened outside his ex-wife Cheryl Chisholm's Baldwin Hills home. Leroy was rushed to hospital in critical condition but did survive the attack, after which time the charges against Williamson were downgraded from attempted murder to attempted manslaughter.

Williamson was arrested in the nearby Ladera Heights neighborhood after Chisholm reported that her ex-husband had been following her. He was released on bail for $180,000 and supported by his wife and fellow actor Sondra Spriggs. Making a statement after his arrest, Williamson said: "This has all been a real big misunderstanding, and I will be vindicated" (via the Los Angeles Times). He was eventually acquitted of all charges.

Li Jun Li has a small role in the fourth season of "Chicago P.D." as patrol officer Julie Tay, who briefly partners with Kim Burgess in a bid to escape her sexist boss at the 24th precinct. However, the actor is better known for her roles in "Wu Assassins," "Babylon," and "Based on a True Story." Li, who has enjoyed a busy career since the early 2010s, considers the Netflix original series Wu Assassins to be one of the most important roles in the career. Unfortunately, she faced intense racism and hateful comments after filming the series. "There were comments that our show felt like Panda Express, and I wished that even these comments weren't made because we're an Asian American cast," Li told Inverse.

Li, who plays Jenny Wah, was especially proud of her part in the series. She said: "This is the first role I feel I'm really right for. Someone that looks like me, that speaks like me. From the surface we're a martial arts show, but there's so much more that I've seen a lot of tweets and comments [from] Asian-Americans [who] can relate. I think that's what's groundbreaking about this. It's not just triad gangsters." Li's groundbreaking role came after a career of roles she says she didn't really identify with but was forced to audition for because they were the only ones with an open ethnicity casting call.

Long before he appeared as Adam Ames in Season 3 of "Chicago P.D.," Richard Thomas captured hearts around the world playing John-Boy Walton in the long-running family drama "The Waltons." An immediate hit with audiences and critics everywhere. It wasn't long before Thomas won his first big award for the role. Just a year after the series premiered, he was nominated for an Emmy award.

However, he got into a terrifying accident the night of the awards. Thomas, who had been driving for less than a year after learning on the set of "The Waltons," was driving himself home from work when the accident happened. Turns out he was worrying about the evening's upcoming events and not concentrating enough on the road. In a 2019 interview with the Television Academy, he recalled: "Here I am, a young star in Hollywood with my first car — and it was a white Volvo station wagon. I wasn't exactly on the fast track. But I was driving and thought, 'You might win this thing. You're not going to, but you might. If you do, what the hell are you going to say?' I had no idea. So, I started to think about it, and — bam — I went right into the car in front of me."

Thomas's car was pretty damaged, but he somehow managed to get himself to the award show in one piece — luckily, since he ended up winning the Emmy. "Then I'm sitting in the theater, and they called my name. I went up, and I was like, 'I wrecked my car,'" he said.

Charisma Carpenter portrays lawyer-turned-marijuana dispensary owner Brianna Logan in Season 3 of "Chicago P.D." But of course, the '90s icon is best known for playing the role of Cordelia Chase in the first three seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and five seasons of its spin-off series, "Angel." In theory, a long-running stable TV job is the dream gig for any actor, but Carpenter has since been clear that the situation behind the scenes of these shows was anything but a dream. Along with some of her other former castmates, Carpenter has spoken out against the abuse she endured while working for "Buffy" creator Joss Whedon.

Carpenter came forward with allegations against Whedon as a mark of solidarity with "Justice League" actor Ray Fisher, who, in 2020, revealed the cast and crew had been subjected to cruel and abusive behavior on the set of the DC film. Sharing her experience in a statement on X (formerly Twitter) along with the hashtag "#IStandWithRayFisher" in 2021, she wrote: "Joss Whedon abused his power on numerous occasions while working together on the sets of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel ... The disturbing incidents triggered a chronic physical condition from which I still suffer."

In her statement, she claimed that Whedon deliberately overworked her while she was pregnant and subjected her to constant character attacks. Sarah Michelle Gellar, David Boreanaz, Michelle Trachtenberg, Amber Benson, and Eliza Dushku shared public messages of support in the wake of Carpenter's statement. For a full breakdown of Charisma Carpenter's claims against Joss Whedon, you can read this detailed article.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, may be the victim of child abuse, needs help with addiction issues or mental heath, contact the relevant resources below:

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

• The Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

• 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.