The Real Reason Jack Nicholson Demolished Marlon Brando's Home

Like most of the world, Jack Nicholson revered Marlon Brando before he, unlike most of the world, became his next-door neighbor and close friend. In the 1970s, Nicholson and Brando wrecked havoc on the famous Mulholland Drive, perched atop the scenic and glamorous hills of Hollywood. Because of the two legendary — and wild — actors, along with Warren Beatty, the street became informally known as "Bad Boy Drive," as Express noted. "These are men for whom rules did not apply, men for whom normal standards of behaviour were simply too boring to bother about," Robert Sellers wrote in his 2009 book "Bad Boy Drive." 

Nicholson and Brando continued to share a driveway for 30 years until "The Godfather" star died at the age of 80. In a tribute written in Rolling Stone, Nicholson, who is 13 years younger than Brando, noted he still had a hard time calling the late actor his friend. "Hell, he's Brando — but we shared more than a driveway. As a neighbor, he was perfect, a great guy who was always there for you. He likes his space — and so do I — but as he put it many times, we'd always be watching each other's back," Nicholson wrote.

After Brando died, Nicholson dipped in his pocket for $5 million and purchased Brando's house in 2005, the San Francisco Chronicle reported at the time. He did more than that, though: He tore it down. Keep scrolling to learn why Nicholson demolished Brando's Mulholland Drive home. 

Marlon Brando died notoriously indebted, with some even characterizing him as "destitute" at the time of his death, as The Guardian noted. As his daughter Rebecca told GQ magazine in 2020, her father didn't care about money. "In the end he only made money so he could help fight injustices. [He helped] the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers," she explained. Still, he was reportedly $20 million in debt when he died, according to the New York Post, which needed to be addressed. To help pay for some of it, the house located at 12900 Mulholland Drive was put up for auction, United Press International reported.

Enter Jack Nicholson, who purchased the property with the intention of passing it on to Brando's children, according to UPI. However, Brando's many heirs — he is said to have had at least 11 children, according to The Guardian — apparently had no interest in it, so Nicholson decided to demolish the home and turn it into a garden of frangipani flowers in 2006. His decision came after the home was deemed to be "derelict" and taken over my mold, according to The Times.

Brando was, as Nicholson wrote in his Rolling Stone article, a great neighbor. "In 30 years' time, you go through many areas of life with someone, but I never had any arguments or disagreements with him over anything, the way neighbors do," he said.

In the early 2000s, Jack Nicholson moved in with his neighbor when his ex-wife, Rebecca Broussard, moved into the home at 12850 Mulholland Drive with their two children, Lorraine and Raymond, per ABC News. According to the Irish Independent, Nicholson moved out after he sold their other Laurel Canyon home where his former wife and children were originally living. Because he was in a relationship with Lara Flynn Boyle at the time, he opted to move out, the report detailed. 

According to The Times, Nicholson also cared for Marlon Brando at his home before his death. As Us Weekly detailed, Brando struggled with a series of ailments in his later years, including a heart condition, an enlarged liver, obesity, and diabetes. Ultimately, it was pulmonary fibrosis that took his life, The Guardian reported. In an attempt to control his overeating, Brando is said to have padlocked his fridge, as the Express noted in 2009. As starving oneself is not the way to handle obesity, the tactic failed and reportedly drove Brando to sneak into his neighbor's home to eat his food.

The neighbors were clearly a match made in heaven. But Brando once pranked Nicholson about selling his home, leaving the latter heartbroken, Nicholson wrote in Rolling Stone. "He wrote me saying he was going to have to sell his place to somebody ... Marlon never stopped laughing about that time he got me to go completely crazy," Nicholson detailed.