The tragedy of the Grinch: How cast of the beloved Christmas movie have been cursed by early death, drug abuse, sexual misconduct allegations

It’s one of the most classic festive films of all time, with many families set to watch it again this December.

However, while How the Grinch Stole Christmas, a 2000 adaptation of Dr Seuss’s 1957 book brings millions of viewers cheer each year, the same cannot be said for its cast.

Those who starred in the Yuletide flick have suffered a myriad of difficulties, including a tragically early death for Josh Ryan Evans – who played baby Grinch – and passed away just two years after the movie debuted.

Elsewhere, Taylor Momsen, who played the adorable Cindy Lou, has spoken about dealing with depression and substance abuse amid her stardom.

And Jim Carrey – who played the titular anti-hero – has weathered scandal after unsavoury allegations surrounding the tragic suicide of his on-off girlfriend.

Meanwhile Christine Baranski, who starred as the protagonist’s childhood crush, has admitted she found it ‘tough’ to deal with the grief of losing her husband in 2014.

Here, FEMAIL looks at the challenges faced by those in the film, and where they are now…

Taylor Momsen

Taylor Momsen, who played Cindy Lou in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, also struggled through an ‘utterly dark hole of depression and substance abuse’ while finding success as the front woman of a punk rock band called The Pretty Reckless.

Taylor, now 31, began her career with her breakout role as Cindy Lou at the age of seven.

Asked why the movie still resonates with so many people, the actress previously told Today: ‘I think that people love The Grinch just simply because the core of the story is so sweet and it’s so heartwarming and it has such a good message.

‘That no matter what age, touches your heart, I think that that’s an amazing thing to be a part of.’

Following her outing in The Grinch, Taylor went on to land roles in Hansel and Gretel, and Spy Kids 2 but then her career went quiet for a while.

She was one of the top three candidates for the part of Hannah Montana, which eventually went to Miley Cyrus but her profile skyrocketed again when she landed the part of preppy teenage socialite Jenny Humphrey in the show, Gossip Girl. 

Taylor left the long-running show in season four to concentrate on her music career and embrace her avant-garde style.

Some commenters alluded to her reportedly being a ‘diva’ and TV personality Tim Gunn had nothing nice to say after working with her on Gossip Girl.

After landing a guest spot on the show, he spoke critically of the actress to E! News, saying: ‘What a diva! She was pathetic, she couldn’t remember her lines, and she didn’t even have that many. I thought to myself “Why are we all being held hostage by this brat?”.’

According to Tim Gunn, Taylor spent all day on her Blackberry instead of learning her lines and that the director told him it happened ‘day in, day out, my life’.

Momsen announced that she was retiring from acting shortly afterwards, when she was just 18-years-old.

The Missouri native’s heart has clearly always been in music – she even recorded a song called Why Can’t I Find You? for The Grinch’s soundtrack.

At eight, she wrote a song called Blackout, which The Hills star Heidi Montag went on record for her debut album, Superficial.

In 2009, her band The Pretty Reckless landed a deal with Interscope Records. They have released two successful albums and Taylor now spends her time touring around the world with the group.

Her image today is a far cry from the cheery youngster who appeared in The Grinch or her squeaky clean Gossip Girl character, with her current trademark style including peroxide hair, thick black eyeliner, ripped fishnet tights and leather.

She has described shows in which she invited fans onstage, but had to stop because it got ‘a little violent,’ telling Rolling Stone how her hair was ripped out and she was ‘sexually assaulted in an uncool way’ as one fan was ‘a little too aggressive for my liking’.

In 2021, she also revealed how she struggled through an ‘utterly dark hole of depression and substance abuse’ following the death of two friends in 2017 and 2018.

First, on May 18, 2017, Soundgarden vocalist and guitarist Chris Cornell died by suicide, at the age of 52.

The Pretty Reckless had been touring with Soundgarden at the time and she considered the band one of her favourites ‘in the world’ — and the loss of Chris to be ‘devastating’.

‘It crushed me in a way that I can’t explain and I was not prepared for as a person,’ she told Metro.co.uk. ‘I wasn’t in a good place mentally to be public. 

‘I cancelled touring, I went home. I needed to attempt to process what had happened and kind of get my s**t together.’

She had just been starting to feel a bit better and was writing music again when she was hit with another tragedy: the death of record producer Kato Khandwala in a motorcycle accident on April 25, 2018.

‘It was the nail in the coffin for me,’ Taylor said, adding that they were ‘so immensely close’.  

‘He was so much more than a producer,’ she said. ‘He was a fifth member of the band and my best friend in the world.’

After this tragic loss, Taylor spiralled, and had a much harder time recovering from the back-to-back losses. 

The star has said she prefers singing to acting, so it’s unlikely we’ll see her return to our screens in any film role – let alone a heart-warming festive one, any time soon.

Recent photos posted to Instagram show Taylor performing at venues around the world. Away from the stage, candid snaps show her meeting with friends, going to the gym and taking some well-earned rest.

Jim Carrey

He became the first actor to ever receive a $20 million paycheck for a role in a film and with 2024 marking the 30th anniversary of the start of his blockbuster career, Jim Carrey should still be a Hollywood heavyweight.

But unsavoury allegations surrounding the tragic suicide of his on-off girlfriend have cast a dark shadow over the How the Grinch Stole Christmas star and led to the cancellation of his comedy career.

The turning point came in 2015 when Cathriona White, 30, an Irish make-up artist took her own life, and lurid details about their relationship began to emerge, including notes in which she accused the actor – who was 25 years her senior – of introducing her to debauched life of sex and drugs and ‘giving her’ herpes.

While Carrey flew to Cathriona’s native Cappawhite, Co Tipperary, for the funeral, a rift with her family soon developed, and her mother and estranged husband sued the actor, claiming he’d caused the make-up artist mental distress that contributed to her suicide.

The case was thrown out and he swiftly retreated from the limelight.

However, after four years away from mainstream cinema, the Canadian actor began a slow and tentative return to film in 2020 with a starring role in Sonic The Hedgehog, the first of three animated adventures based around the escapades of Sega’s greatest export.

While promoting the film’s sequel in 2022, Carrey, now-62, said he was retiring from acting and yet this month he was back on the red carpet for the UK premiere of the third instalment,  joking that he ‘needs the money’. 

Speaking in London, the Canadian actor suggested his personal fortune – once thought to be as much as $120million – has dwindled.

‘I came back to this universe because I get to play a genius, which is a bit of a stretch,’ he said. ‘And you know, I bought a lot of stuff and I need the money, frankly.’

Whatever the truth about his financial situation, one thing is clear – Carey is not ready to retire, despite claiming two years ago: ‘I have enough. I’ve done enough’.

Now the question is whether he will be able to escape the shadow that the demise of his relationship with Ms White cast over his glittering career.  

The couple met in 2012, when Cathriona was 27 and Carrey was 52, and had an on-off relationship until 2015, when she was found dead from a prescription drug overdose.

Her death was ruled as suicide by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner.

Carrey was a pallbearer at her funeral in Ireland and was pictured comforting her friends and family.

In the weeks that followed, however, a picture of the couple’s tumultuous relationship began to emerge when a note Cathriona had written two years before her death gave a damning description of how she felt the actor treated her. 

The note, written on her iPad, was discovered by lawyers working on behalf of her mother Brigid Sweetman, and estranged husband, Mark Burton, who filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Carrey, saying he gave her the pills to kill herself after obtaining them in a false name and giving her STDs.   

‘You did good things for me but being with you broke me down as a person, Jim. I was promised Jekyll and instead I got Hyde,’ she wrote in the note. 

‘Because I love you I would have stuck out Hyde all year and done everything he wanted to be with Jekyll for 5 of those, but you threw me away when you absorbed anything worthwhile that was left of me.’

She also spoke of the shame she felt over having STDs, which she claimed she’d contracted from Carrey. 

‘You have not thought about the stigma I have to live with for the rest of my life, you have not apologized or once asked is there something you can do to make it better or even felt bad for it,’ she wrote. 

‘You gave me HSV and HPV, I want you to apologize for it because you care enough to. I want you to understand that however little a thing seems to you, it ruins a girl’s life.

‘I want you to take care when you are with other girls and pay attention to your body your actions effect people.’

The Irish make-up artist also said: ‘Before you, I might not have had very much but I had respect, I was a happy person.

‘I loved life, I was confident and I felt good in my skin and was proud of most decisions I made, I met you, you introduced me to cocaine, prostitutes, mental abuse and disease.

‘You did good things for me but being with you broke me down as a person, Jim.’

Texts between the pair showed how Cathriona became concerned she had an STD in January 2013, and texted Carrey about it.

He replied: ‘Aggravated folacles [sic] or bumps are normal when you shave or have vigorous sex.’

The following month White again wrote to Carrey about finding ‘a couple of bumps’ and wanting to get ‘checked’, telling him that she had tested before they got together so she couldn’t have caught an STD from anyone else. 

In response, Carrey texted back and ended their relationship, writing: ‘Don’t want to talk anymore… I’m done. You have become too much drama.’

In response to her family’s legal action, Carrey then launched a counter lawsuit, dropping the bombshell that he had already paid Cathriona an undisclosed sum of money in 2013 to settle her STD claims, while demanding her mother and husband pay him back three times the original settlement. 

He described White as a ‘beautiful but immature and emotionally damaged woman’ at the start of their relationship and alleged that her former attorney took advantage of her ‘warm and exciting’ romance with the star to profit. 

The actor also said that Miss White had blackmailed him by threatening to go public with what he said were false claims that he had given her sexually transmitted diseases unless he paid her millions of dollars.

Carrey was later cleared after his attorney found that Miss White had edited the information on a friend’s STD test to make it look like it had belonged to her, so she could prove she was clean before entering into a relationship with the actor.

Despite their earlier legal battle, the pair did get back together in 2015.

The actor said that he forgave her, and the pair continued building a future together, starting work on a cohabitation agreement so that she could permanently move in with him. 

She was upset, he said, by his insistence that she sign a non-disclosure confidentiality agreement but that she otherwise seemed ‘happy’ until her 30th birthday on September 14.

He claimed that her biological mother Brigid, who she’d been estranged from, sent her an upsetting message on Facebook, saying she was ‘worthless’ and would ‘never amount to anything’.

It was this and her apparent guilt over ‘extorting’ him two years earlier which prompted her suicide, according to Carrey.  

Cathriona, who according to loved ones had depressive tendencies, wrote several suicide notes before she took her own life. One, written in 2012, describes Carrey as a ‘strong and wonderful human being’.

‘I love Jim and I’m sorry I brought turmoil into his life,’ she wrote.

In May 2013, another note, written to her attorney, told a different story. It demanded that the world know he was responsible for her death.

‘I want you to get together and release to the press about all the physical abuse, mental abuse and diseases that Jim gave me. Unfortunately, I don’t have the words to put to paper I am too numb,’ she wrote.

Her third of the notes, which were discovered near her body in 2015, was addressed to the actor.

It showed no signs that she was angry with him but hinted that their relationship had come into trouble.

‘Jim, I thought we had chosen each other. I believed it meant something and I let myself relax in your arms in the safety of being sure of one thing…us.

‘If everything went sideways we had each other. I’ve spent 3 days now in disbelief that you’re not here. I thought when I saw you it would be OK again and it’s not,’ it said.

She signed it off: ‘I love you, please forgive me I’m just not for this world. Peace and love to all your hearts.’

Before her body was found, Carrey had sent a text message asking where his missing prescription painkillers were.

The LA Coroner’s report – obtained by Daily Mail Online – showed that Cathriona had taken the actor’s anti-inflammatory pills along with a cocktail of other drugs to end her life. 

Her body was found by friends who had gone to her residence after a third party told them she had broken up with Carrey the week before.

Meanwhile, suffering from depression from a young age, the comedian also took Prozac, an anti-depressant, in the 90s. 

He has previously admitted it is only ‘valuable for short periods of time’ and prevents people from ‘addressing the real problem’.

‘I was on it for a long time,’ he said in 2004. ‘It may have helped me out of a jam for a little bit. I don’t take anything now, I rarely drink coffee. No alcohol and no drugs, life is too beautiful.’

Christine Baranski

Christine Baranski, known for her roles in the Mama Mia! movies and Big Bang Theory played Martha May Whovier, the Grinch’s childhood crush, in the festive film.

However, while her professional life has thrived, she has been candid about how her husband’s death in 2014 was ‘tough’ personally.

Matthew Cowles died from heart failure, at the age of 69, 10 years ago. He and Christine had two daughters together – Isabel, 40, and Lily, 37.

In 2017, Christine told Parade: ‘There’s no shortcut to grief. A few months after Matthew passed away I had to be back in front of a camera, but it helped to be with my community of people.

‘They all knew and loved me, so going back to work was good. Still, for the first month or so, you’re rather numb. The death of a loved one is not only deeply sad but also very disorienting.

‘When you’ve had a 30-year marriage and sat across from this person every morning having coffee, it’s so strange. Someone is there and then suddenly they’re not there to talk to ever again.’

She recounted the couple’s love story in a New York Times interview in 2011, revealing that the pair met while doing an Ibsen play in Garden City, Long Island, together in the 80s.

‘He asked me if I wanted to ride home on his motorcycle one night. He was this shaggy blond-haired guy who smoked unfiltered Mexican cigarettes. He was really exotic,’ she said.

‘I was in my early 30s. He loved riding around lower Manhattan – back when SoHo was a little dark. Anyhow, that’s how our romance began. We lived in a few funky lofts downtown. I was doing Midsummer Night’s Dream in Central Park. That’s the first role I played in New York that got some real recognition.’

Eventually, the couple made their way over to Connecticut, where they raised their children with ‘fewer hassles’.

Isabel went on to be a lawyer while Lily followed in her parents’ footsteps and is now an actress. 

In 2022, Christine spoke again about the grief of losing her husband in an interview for a cover story for Town & Country magazine, following her role as Agnes van Rhijn on HBO’s historical drama The Gilded Age.

The actress talked about how the role helped her feel more connected to her late husband through his family, revealing her late husband Matthew’s connection to the Drexel family, which was part of that era in American history – and featured in the show.

Matthew’s great-grandfather was Joseph Drexel, who founded Drexel Banking’s New York Branch with JP Morgan.

The Drexel family are actually featured in an episode of her show since they played a part in the Gilded Age of America. 

The Gilded Age in America took place from about the 1870s until 1900.

‘I was, of course, immersing myself in research on the Gilded Age. And I realized more deeply how connected my late husband’s family had been,’ she explained.

She added: ‘If you want to look any of these people up, you will be drawn into a rabbit hole of interest.’ 

Christine continued: ‘At the end of the 10th episode – I don’t want to spoiler – but there’s an enormous scene where the various members of society are introduced, and [The Gilded Age Creator and Writer] Julian [Fellows] had the Drexel family being the first people introduced at the ball.’ 

The actress has forged a celebrated career across theatre and television as well as films, but is perhaps best known for her role as Donna’s friend Tanya in the Mama Mia! movies.

She has also appeared in US dramas The Good Wife and The Good Fight, and played Leonard’s mother Dr Beverly Hofstadter in The Big Bang Theory. 

Joshua Ryan Evans

Joshua Ryan Evans’ role as the young version of Carrey’s Grinch became a fan favourite – but tragically, the actor who played him passed away just two years after the film’s release.

Due a rare condition called achondroplasia, which is a form of dwarfism, Joshua appeared younger than his years – he wowed audiences playing the role of the eight-year-old Grinch while he was in his teens.

As reported by CBS, Joshua died during a medical procedure at a hospital in San Diego in July 2002 at the age of 20. He was reportedly undergoing an operation to correct a congenital heart condition.

Eerily, on the day Josh died, so did his character Timmy the Living Doll on the episode of soap opera Passion that aired that night, after being taped a month earlier.

His friend and Passions’ co-star Juliet Mills told Soap Opera Digest that despite the tragedy: ‘He was a showbiz kid through and through. That’s what he loved more than anything — showbiz.

‘It was a legendary thing to do [to pass away the same day his character died on air]. It was on the news. He made a big bang when he went.’

Jeffrey Tambor 

Jeffrey Tambor, who is known as a legendary actor across film and television, played Mayor Augustus – the Grinch’s childhood bully who became mayor of Whoville – in the Christmas film.

However, since starring in the flick, the now 80-year-old has courted controversy after claims of sexual misconduct resulted in his firing from the Amazon hit show Transparent in 2018.

The Emmy Award-winning actor has insisted that he never harassed the women who accused him. He also suggested that the allegations against him were part of a ‘coup’ to have him removed from the show.

During an in-depth interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Arrested Development star conceded that he’s had difficulty controlling his explosive temper and would sometimes act in a belligerent and tactless manner towards the cast and crew, including show creator Jill Soloway, who he says was afraid of him.

‘Lines got blurred,’ Tambor told the publication during the interview at a coffee shop in Katonah, New York, where he lived at the time with his wife and four children. ‘I was difficult, I was mean…I was rude to my assistant. I was moody. Sometimes I didn’t talk at all.’

Tambor revealed that on one occasion, he yelled at Transparent executive producer Bridget Bedard on set and made her cry, for which he later apologized.

He however vehemently denied the allegations made against him by his former personal assistant Van Barnes and his former Transparent co-star Trace Lysette, who are both transgender women.

Barnes, who worked for Tambor for two years, and whose October 2017 Facebook post in support of the #MeToo movement eventually led to Amazon shutting down production of the series, said during a recent appearance on the Megyn Kelly Show that Tambor had once bragged to her about watching her sleep naked.

‘That’s violating, it’s so creepy,’ she said during the March interview.

In her status, which never mentioned Tambor by name, Barnes claimed that the actor told her ‘that “for that kind’a money and after all that time of working for him that I should be sleeping with him if I want a Hollywood-industry-appropriate pay grade”.’

Barnes also claimed that the same person gave her ‘butt pats,’ made her listen to ‘his porno’ and complained that she was not ‘taking care of him sexually’.

Tambor at the time issued a statement calling Barnes ‘a former disgruntled assistant’, saying he was ‘appalled and distressed’ by her ‘baseless’ allegations.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in his first interview since the scandal broke, Tambor doubled down on his denial of Barnes’ claims of sexual misconduct.

‘I dispute her account,’ he said. ‘I did raise my voice at times, I was moody at times, there were times when I was tactless. But as for the other stuff, absolutely not.’

Barnes said that she tried to report Tambor’s behaviour to his personal management team, but nothing ever came of it, so she quit in January 2017 and has since returned to her native Missouri to attend cosmetology school.

Amazon launched an investigation into Tambor’s conduct on the set of Transparent after actress Trace Lysette also came forward and claimed that she, too, had been sexually harassed by the Hollywood A-lister.

Lysette claimed that Tambor got ‘physical’ with her on set and at red carpet events, including kissing her on the lips, and one time pushing his penis against her.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Lysette, who played a stripper named Shea on the show, said that they were filming the third episode of Season 2 when Tambor looked at her dressed in short pyjama bottoms and told her, ‘My God, Trace, I want to attack you sexually,’ she quoted the married actor as telling her.

Actress Alexandra Billings, who was also in the scene, confirmed Lysette’s account.

A few minutes later, she said Tambor ‘waddled’ over to her, put his feet on hers and began thrusting against her hip, in a way she characterized as ‘discreet and insidious and creepy’.

She added: ‘I felt his genitals on me. And I pushed him off.’

Amazon launched the internal probe in November 2017, which led to his firing in mid-February. Tambor learned he had been terminated via text message from Joey Soloway, who created Transparent.

Tambor issued a statement at the time, saying he was ‘profoundly disappointed’ in the ‘deeply flawed and biased’ investigation’s outcome and in Soloway.

It has been suggested that Tambor was pushed out of the cast because he was a cisgender man – a person who identifies as his birth sex – playing a transgender woman, Maura Pfefferman. Soloway seemingly hinted at that in an email to Tambor that read: ‘They have been after Maura from the beginning.’

Soloway’s sister, writing producer Faith Soloway, told Tambor in a separate email that they were in ‘a coup’ and that he was ‘fantastic’ on the show.

In a moment of self-reflection, Tambor blamed his aggressive and surly behaviour on set on his feelings of fear and insecurity ‘because I was a cisgender male playing Maura Pfefferman’.

He continued: ‘And my whole thing was, “Am I doing it right? Am I doing it right? Am I doing it right?” To the point that I worried myself to death.’

In a Facebook post reacting to the Hollywood Reporter interview, Barnes claimed to be in possession of typed notes and names of ‘other Tambor victims’ who have contacted her privately but have not gone public with their allegations.

Barnes hit out at the author of the article, whom she accused of going along with Tambor’s ‘story’ to help him rehabilitate his public image, and at the producers of the show for ‘guilty tripping’ her and others into silence.

‘I call BS! …and in my best trans-affirmative voice “B****, Please!”… the truth always prevails and I have no problem letting that truth go public in the right way as soon as I’m cleared to do so,’ Barnes concluded.