Summary
- Stephen Colbert's father and two brothers tragically died in a plane crash when he was 10 years old, forever changing his life.
- Colbert turned to religion to make sense of his grief and developed a new perspective on loss, suffering, and existence.
- Colbert believes that despite the pain and suffering, existence itself is a gift, and through loss, we gain a deeper understanding of others and the human experience.
On September 11, 1974, 10-year-old Stephen Colbert lost his father James as well as his brothers Paul and Peter in a plane crash. They were on board a flight from Charleston to Charlotte, North Carolina.
72 people were killed in the crash, with only 13 of the 82 passengers on board surviving.
This loss would forever change his life and he was eventually able to make sense of his grief. Years later, Colbert spoke to CNN host Anderson Cooper. Cooper had lost both of his parents and was incredibly moved by Colbert's outlook.
Stephen Colbert Lost His Father And Two Of His Brothers In A Plane Crash
In 2019, Colbert told Anderson Cooper about how he struggled after the immense loss of his father and two brothers.
"There’s this big break in the cable of my memory at their death. Everything before that has got an odd, ghostly tone," Colbert said. "I was personally shattered and then you reform yourself in this quiet, grieving world that was created in the house. My mother had me to take care of, which I think was sort of a gift for her, a sense of purpose at that point. But I also had her to take care of. It became a very quiet house, very dark, and ordinary concerns of childhood kind of disappeared."
Colbert, who was raised Catholic, turned to religion to help himself make sense of what happened. This caused him to develop a new perspective on loss, suffering, and its place in our lives.
"You gotta learn to love the bomb," he told GQ in 2015. "Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. So that's why. Maybe, I don't know. That might be why you don't see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It's that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened."
Colbert would lose his brother Carter by suicide in 1988 at the age of 23.
Stephen Colbert Moved Anderson Cooper To Tears While Being Interviewed About Grief
Colbert was interviewed by Anderson Cooper in 2019. Cooper had just lost his mother Gloria Vanderbilt. During the interview, Cooper brought up the subject of grief and questioned Colbert on his outlook.
"You told an interviewer that you have learned to – in your words – love the thing that I most wish had not happened," Cooper said before getting choked up. "You went on to say, 'What punishments of God are not gifts?' Do you really believe that?"
"Yes," Colbert responded without missing a beat. "It's a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering. There's no escaping that."
"I don't want it to have happened," Colbert explained. "I want it to not have happened, but if you are grateful for your life, which I think is a positive thing to do, not everybody is – and I am not always – but it's the most positive thing to do, then you have to be grateful for all of it. You can't pick and choose what you're grateful for."
He continued, "So, what do you get from loss? You get awareness of other people's loss, which allows you to connect with that other person, which allows you to love more deeply and to understand what it's like to be a human being, if it's true that all humans suffer."
Colbert reached out to Cooper after his mother passed away. In a letter, Colbert told Cooper that he wished for him to "find peace in your grief."
Cooper said that hearing from others who opened up about their own experiences with loss helped him.
"I found it to be the most powerful and moving thing, and I kind of, oddly, don't want that to stop, because in regular times people don't do that," Cooper said.
Cooper later posed the clip from his interview with Colbert on Twitter. He said it was "one of my favorite excerpts" from their conversation.
"This question he embraces left me stunned when I first read it, and I can’t stop thinking about his answer," Cooper wrote. "It has helped me, and I hope it helps others."
Anderson Had Stephen Colbert On His Podcast And They Continued Their Conversation
In 2022, Cooper had Colbert as a guest on his podcast All There Is with Anderson Cooper. During their discussion, Colbert talked about the significance of "learning to love the thing you most wish had never happened."
Colbert was only 10 years old when he lost his father and two brothers.
"That is such a cliff that I fell off emotionally and psychically and spiritually at that age," Colbert said.
While Colbert admitted the loss "shattered" the lives of himself and his mother, he insisted it didn't "destroy" them.
Prior to the birth of his sons, Wyatt and Sebastian, Cooper always assumed he would die at the age of 50 like his father. He said that he always feared that if he had children, they would grow up without a father.
However, when Cooper turned 50 and saw his doctor, he was reassured that he was in good health. Cooper said this made him feel safer having kids.
Colbert said that he had the same fears. He explained that because he lost his own father at the age of 10, he worried that he would pass away as his own children approached the same age.
Colbert went on to encourage Cooper to talk about the people he lost and share stories about their lives. He said that, rather than viewing grief as a trap of depression, view it as a doorway "because you’re going to be a different person on the other side of it."
