Marie Osmond son's suicide: The real unknown story
Marie herself - who is said to be 'beside herself with grief' following the death of her adopted 18-year-old son Michael - has cancelled the concerts she was due to perform this week with Donny at a Las Vegas casino.
MARIE OSMOND is struggling with the grief of her son's suicide. But as the rest of the family puts up a brave face, media is looking for clues, details that lurk under the face of a seemingly happy family. According to Daily Mail, his death is just the latest trauma to befall his 50-year-old mother, who admitted four years ago that she had attempted suicide after falling victim to post-natal depression. The UK daily also reports that Marie confessed to suffering sexual assaults at the hands of a family member she always refused to name. All that people knew about Osmond's happy family child stars was their 80 million record sales, through TV shows. But few knew the inside story.
"Donny, the most famous of the six performing Osmond brothers, suffered depression after his once golden career crumbled; another brother went bankrupt; one is fighting a brain tumour; and another is stricken with multiple sclerosis," reports Daily Mail.
The brothers' father, George allegedly sacrificed his children's childhood for glamour, fame and fortune. Osmond senior's four kids - Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay - began singing as a barbershop quartet to raise money for Mormon missions abroad.
Reportedly Merrill and Jay, who had never wanted to go into showbusiness in the first place, were instructed to forget their dreams of studying medicine, and instead the children were privately schooled by a series of Mormon teachers. The reality of life as a member of The Osmonds was far from the apple-pie image of the dream American family.
"Donny, the most famous of the six performing Osmond brothers, suffered depression after his once golden career crumbled; another brother went bankrupt; one is fighting a brain tumour; and another is stricken with multiple sclerosis," reports Daily Mail.
The brothers' father, George allegedly sacrificed his children's childhood for glamour, fame and fortune. Osmond senior's four kids - Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay - began singing as a barbershop quartet to raise money for Mormon missions abroad.
Reportedly Merrill and Jay, who had never wanted to go into showbusiness in the first place, were instructed to forget their dreams of studying medicine, and instead the children were privately schooled by a series of Mormon teachers. The reality of life as a member of The Osmonds was far from the apple-pie image of the dream American family.
At home, Marie had her own bedroom, but the brothers were forced to sleep on military-style iron beds in a bunk-room built onto the house by their father.
Every morning at 5.45 a bugle would sound and the whole family had to jump out of bed, line up and shout out their numbers from one to nine before being put to work on their song-and-dance routines. 'He would shout "head count", and we would all line up and bellow out our number,' recalls Jimmy. Mistakes and bad behaviour were punished by beatings. 'In some cases, the way we were treated would be classed as abuse today,' says Donny. A few years before Donny became the lead singer, he secretly wrote a letter to his mother at home in the U.S. to beg her to take him home from a tour of Sweden.Marie, who like her brothers remains a devout Mormon, admitted in her book Behind The Smile that she had a breakdown following the birth of her younger natural son, Matthew, in 1999.
And four years ago she confessed to having attempted suicide. Michael, whom she'd adopted as a baby, had a history of mental illness, and two years ago he was admitted to a rehabilitation centre for treatment for drink and drug addiction. One of Marie's friends, American TV presenter Mary Hart, said yesterday: 'Michael had struggled, and been in and out of rehab. Marie, always looking for the silver lining, had hoped for the best.' Sadly, it didn't happen and she is having to come to terms with her loss - with the support of the rest of the dysfunctional and damaged Osmond clan. | Previous Post |
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