- Well, hey, sugar. Come in and sit down.
Get yourself something to drink.
I've got all I need right here, I quit drinking.
- [Narrator] Brett Butler introduced millions
to a new kind of Southern charm.
- Grew up Southern Baptist with a big picture
of Elvis's last supper in our living room.
- There's no one, I believe, who's Southern,
that speaks to politics and being liberal like Brett Butler.
- Just see that one irate Baptist going,
"You can make fun of Jesus,
but you leave the king out of it."
- She's so scary smart.
- Brett!
- She had this conceit as the thinking woman's hillbilly.
- So what she brought to the stage
was a perspective that you don't see often
- I was married to a simian, knuckle-dragging,
cousin... ing, dog-selling, mother-loving,
trailer-dwelling, brainless amoeba
on the booger farm at the bayou.
- [Narrator] Audiences couldn't get enough.
- She went on that stage
and she did her Southern comedy routine and she killed.
- [Narrator] But when she skyrocketed to fame-
- You've got the golden ticket right there in your hands!
- Get back in the car.
- [Narrator] Hollywood and Brett Butler proved a toxic mix.
- Je suis nouveau riche.
(Brett chuckles)
- There's nothing more enabling
than to give an alcoholic a million dollars.
- Hollywood is a chew-you-up, spit-you-out business.
- [Narrator] Following one of the most
spectacular public meltdowns in show business history-
- Well, how'd you blow that kind of money?
- [Narrator] Brett dropped off the map.
- I mean, I'll always be that person that threw away a lot.
- Your relationship with money
is a reflection of your relationship with yourself.
- She really was fearing that she was gonna be evicted.
- [Narrator] Where did Brett Butler go wrong?
- This is such a tricky business
and a person's journey can be so magnificent
and then can fall so, so heartbreakingly hard.
- I'm Brett Butler.
- [Interviewer] And Brett, what are you known for?
- You mean the good part? You're... ing kidding.
No, I'm sorry.
- [Host] Ladies and gentlemen,
you're about to be entertained.
- [Woman 1] Getting a laugh is the greatest addiction.
- [Woman 2] They want more of it, they want more of it.
- [Man 1] She was getting death threats.
- [Woman 3] It (beep) with your head.
- [Man 2] He's out of his skull.
- [Lorraine] That's what took her down.
- [Man 3] This is a crazy story.
- [Announcer] "Roseanne," right after "Ellen"
and "Grace Under Fire."
- In the mid nineties, women like Brett Butler ruled.
They were the shit.
- I moved to New York because I thought New York
would be devoid of the intolerance and racism
that I grew up with in the South.
- In America, when you have a southern drawl,
there's an instant prejudice that you're stupid.
- Two minutes after she's on stage,
people would sit up and go,
"This girl can really write a joke
and it's high brow material."
Brett Butler was one of my closest friends in comedy.
Everybody knew Brett was the real deal.
- You take the biggest redneck you ever met to New York
and they'd be like, "Well, shit, this is great.
I can hate everybody."
- I loved that we had the same accent
and I loved how smart she was.
- But like any southerner who departed,
I want credit for getting out.
- She really showed that just 'cause you come from a place
that's a stereotype, doesn't mean you have to be one.
- [Narrator] Brett Butler grew up in small towns
across the American South in the 1960s.
- I was born in Alabama and raised in Georgia.
I'm so southern I'm related to myself for Christ's sake.
I'm not saying everybody on our street said racial epithets,
but, yeah, I'm from a little place in Georgia.
Our dad was a violent, bipolar alcoholic who was untreated
and it was bad for us to be around,
and my mom left when I was four.
She just, that was it.
I somehow knew I would never see him again.
Mom was really depressed and had to be hospitalized for it.
You know, she survived and did a hell of a job.
What she taught us at home was a world of stuff
that school never brought us.
Culture, art, equality.
I mean, those are just things that are priceless.
She used to tell me my whole life
that I was gonna do comedy.
We had pageants at our school when I was eight
and I said, "I'm gonna do that comedy
that guy was doing on Ed Sullivan."
He was some guy named George Carlin
you've probably heard of.
- In 1492, Columbus did one of the most
daring things yet known to man,
he borrowed money from a woman.
- And I got up and did George Carlin.
I'm eight years old in Marietta, Georgia,
and my mom is howling in the back
and she was the only person in the room laughing.
Then my friend got up to play piano.
She was playing "Silent Night" on the piano
and a key got stuck.
So I stage whispered from the back,
"Harriet play the one next to it."
Everyone died laughing,
and mom said, "Your face when they all laughed."
I have never been so happy.
That was heroin for me, I guess.
All the trauma and tragedy and stuff like that,
but we really did laugh.
Life was strange and there is comedy in some dark places.
The summer I turned 14, all of a sudden I looked 28,
and my mom was getting ill at that time, really sick,
and she tried to commit suicide
and got really close to doing it.
- [Narrator] As Brett's mother's illness worsened,
she began to experiment with alcohol.
- I got drunk at 14 and knew I don't have a relationship
with alcohol the way other people do,
because I totally blacked out when I drank
and I also really wanted to do it again.
- [Narrator] Brett's binge drinking
eventually led her to quit college.
- I had a greater academic aptitude than I lived up to.
I met someone and got married three months
after meeting him, they call it limerence.
It's the invariably temporary feeling that you get
when you're falling in love.
And the first time he hit me,
was the day after we got married, and it
and I stayed for three years.
The last time I saw him,
he fired a rifle and I heard the bullet go by my ear
and that was finally my aha.
Okay, how much closer can the bullet get?
- [Narrator] Brett got out of the marriage,
but her drinking was still a problem.
- So I started going to a wonderful therapist
and I would just be crying and telling my story
and everything, and he said, "Get a tape recorder,
and when you're crying like this, you talk to yourself."
And one weekend, my sister and I were hanging out together
and I got the tape recorder out
and I was doing all these different characters.
My sister would laugh so hard and she used to cry
and her ribs hurt and I didn't know
that I was getting an act together.
- [Narrator] In time,
Brett decides to try her hand at amateur night.
- I was waiting tables and the first time I walked on stage,
I took a tray 'cause I was gonna be the funny waitress.
And the second I got on stage, I go,
"Pfft, no," and I just was born to do it.
I remember the other comics saying, "You're lying,
this can't be your first time on stage," and it was.
- [Narrator] After a knockout first performance,
the creative director offers Brett a regular spot.
- I quit my day job probably too early, but I got hired.
It just made me feel wonderful when people laughed.
Yeah, I had something to live for with comedy.
- [Narrator] Soon, Brett is making stand-up
her full-time gig.
- I mean, the comedy clubs back then, they were exploding.
My name is Ritch Shydner, I'm known as a stand-up comedian.
I met Brett Butler around 1982
at the Punchline in Columbia, South Carolina.
You'd come off the stage, the bar would be lined
with every drug dealer hipster in town.
We were absolute rock stars.
- [Narrator] But Brett soon realizes
she can't handle the rock and roll lifestyle.
- I remember years ago hearing,
"If you can have one drink a day for 30 days,
no more, no less than that, you don't have a problem."
As soon as I heard it, I knew I couldn't.
- [Narrator] Brett knows if she wants to make it as a comic,
she'll have to quit alcohol.
- We were working together.
They put us in a comedy condo,
as the tradition was back then.
Brett was sober at the time,
so every night I was coming in,
like four or five in the morning after being out drinking
and doing coke all night long
and she'd be up reading a book.
There was not one time ever,
I remember being in a comedy condo,
seeing a book open that wasn't carved out
hiding drugs in it.
She was working from a very sober place.
That had an impact on me
because I could see how she'd progressed
and night after night, she was getting better.
- I used to do this joke, just a little one, about...
Men are looking at me like,
if somebody teach you how to make biscuits,
you wouldn't be up there doing that crap, would you, huh?
And they'd laugh, they'd know.
It was like, yeah, it's kind of pissing me off,
but I like this girl.
So that's where we met, in the middle.
- Brett talked about drinking,
she talked about the abusive marriage.
- I was married to the kind of guy, how can I explain it?
My comedy's been autobiographical
He had a gun in every room of our trailer.
I think when you leave a relationship
in which you've been abused,
you're stuck with the person that allowed that to happen.
Fortunately, in my case, I got out,
and less than a year later,
I was actually making jokes out of it.
It was like, "All right,
now who took the gun out of the bathroom?"
Like, "Precious, you don't need a gun
in the medicine cabinet."
"You know I like to clean it when I'm in here."
And I told the truth.
That's okay, y'all, I'll get pay back.
He'll be in the back of a club one night,
holding a bead on me going, "Yeah, be funny now, bitch."
- [Narrator] Brett's powerful female voice
resonates with audiences, but she wants something more.
- I'd never left the South before.
- [Narrator] Brett takes her Southern act
all the way to the comedy mecca of New York City.
- A friend of a friend had found me an apartment in Brooklyn
and there were a couple of girls living there,
Jewish girls from the Northeast going,
"Oh, my God, you're gonna die here."
- [Narrator] Despite being a fish out of water,
Brett hits the pavement.
- I didn't know what to make of myself.
I had different jokes.
I didn't really fit into anything but
- [Narrator] Little by little,
Brett chips away at the New York comedy scene.
- I saw her very first time on stage in New York City.
She was nervous as all get out.
I can still quote, "I'm so Southern, I'm
- [Narrator] She works her way
into New York's most esteemed club.
- Eventually, I got on at Catch A Rising Star.
- Every night was sold out to the rafters.
My name is Larry Amoros
and I'm an old friend of Brett Butler's.
We know each other from both of our early comedy days
at Catch A Rising Star.
And we would literally have David Bowie come in,
Ringo Starr would stop by on any given night.
Robin Williams would come in
and whoever has to follow him is really... ed.
- I have some bad news for you.
Why you've been here this evening,
groups of gay men have broken into your apartment
and redecorated it.
- I mean, it was a very hot place to be.
- I was a backup, backup. I never got to go on.
- Oh, my God, the backup, backup.
They would have a backup in case somebody was late
or didn't show up.
And then you started having a backup, backup
in case the backup had to go on
and somebody else didn't show.
- Yeah, so I did that for, I think two years.
Then I started to go on.
- But they didn't know what to make of her.
They figured she was just gonna be,
"Well, I'm... ing my brother and dah, dah, dah."
And that's not who she is.
She's sitting there reading Proust,
then she's gonna go out and shoot dinner.
How do you not like that?
- [Narrator] And then one day,
a breakthrough chance to reach a national audience.
- One night, four years into doing comedy,
the guy from "The Tonight Show" came.
- [Narrator] Brett is about to land every comic's dream,
a spot on Carson.
- Four years to get your first "Tonight Show"
is pretty quick, and it probably was too early for me.
- [Narrator] "The Tonight Show" lures Brett
towards the promise of fame.
- There's a dark side to fame.
You're so high and that come down
can be so extreme for people.
Anytime the ego gets involved, there can be a dark side.
- Showbiz is really, it's not real.
It's an illusion, you can get caught up in that illusion.
- [Narrator] And with fame comes the cruel demands
of Hollywood.
- I just think, you know, if you take someone like Brett,
no wonder things made a left turn somewhere along the line,
it was destined to.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] After just four years in New York,
Brett Butler lands a coveted spot on "The Tonight Show."
- Here's Johnny!
- I mean, even though I'm petty and small and resentful,
I managed to put that aside for five minutes
to be happy for someone else.
- There's a lot of lore around the history
of modern stand-up.
One of the primary examples is that a comedian
could do a successful spot on "The Tonight Show,"
and then, overnight, their whole life changes.
- It's a lot of pressure.
- I used to have this joke,
I look like a lesbian art teacher
from Hartford, Connecticut, and right before the show,
the booker goes, "You can't do that joke."
And I go, "That joke is the only hip thing
I have in my whole show."
He said, "Johnny's audience won't know where Hartford is."
I'm like, "Oh, I can fix that."
- [Johnny] Would you welcome Brett Butler, Brett?
(upbeat music)
(audience applauds)
- I like this, I'm dressed like a lesbian art teacher
from Santa Cruz, this is great.
- My mom had recorded on the big VHS
Brett on "The Tonight Show."
My name is Trish Suhr, I'm a comedian and a TV host.
And my mom, being a single southern mother,
was absolutely enamored with Brett Butler.
And I thought, I'm gonna be spicy and watch this.
- I'm not a lesbian, I can't even do improv.
- I remember she used to do a bit
where she would talk about her accent in New York.
- They hear me talk.
It's like, "Yo, Dominic, over here.
She's from the south, I would never go there.
People sound so stupid when they talk."
Yeah, I remember the first big laugh.
You almost see me just go,
oh, thank God they got that out of the way.
- That's wonderful stuff. Thank you, Brett.
- It's the greatest feeling, it's wonderful.
(Brett chuckles)
- She's a funny young lady, Brett Butler.
- So I just fell in love with her.
I thought she was the bees knees.
- [Narrator] Brett's "Tonight Show" appearance
introduces her to a world of new fans.
In the years that follow,
she becomes a familiar face in living rooms across America.
- In that period, she was relatively new.
I'm Marc Flanagan, television writer, producer.
Someone who worked for Carsey-Werner, he said,
"We should have this Brett Butler come in
'cause she might be good for Chuck's pilot."
- At the time, the mindset was, let's get stand-up comedians
'cause they understand how to do jokes.
- Like, you think sitcom and in the dictionary,
there's a picture of Chuck Lorre.
I am Ron Moseley.
Long, long, long time ago,
I worked on a show called "Grace Under Fire."
♪ Can you see me walking down the street ♪
- [Ron] We were blessed to work
for the Carsey-Werner company,
which was like the Facebook, the Instagram of television.
You know, they did "Roseanne" and "The Cosby Show."
- They don't give out sympathy projects
to five foot 11 gals from Alabama, she was good.
- Grace was a mix of tried and true sitcom chemistry
and hopefully something I brought
that wasn't any place else.
- Do you think you and dad will ever live together again?
- No, honey, I don't think so.
- Why doesn't he live with us?
- Because he won the coin toss.
- She was a single mom of three kids
and she worked at a refinery.
- You know the only reason you got this job
is 'cause you're a chick.
- Au contraire, Archimedes.
The only reason I got this job is because I promised
to have sex with the smart guys, too bad for you.
- [Ron] She was sort of the every woman.
- I felt like that was a big deal to show poor white people.
- You see those kids in there,
I'm raising them by myself, no child support, no alimony.
It was groundbreaking that the topic was
that she was a single mom.
- And you can forget about having a sex life.
I don't even have time to put the shower head on pause.
- But her take on everything was refreshing.
- Works every time.
- [Narrator] Though Grace was not created for Brett,
much of the character became autobiographical.
- Part of her act was that she'd been
in an abusive marriage.
- So what happens when I make you mad? You gonna hit me too?
- No, of course not, I'm not like Dad.
- I had an unfortunate first marriage,
and for good or bad, I got known for that.
- So I asked her, "Can I use your backstory
for the backstory of the character?"
- That was a tough call.
Like, how are you gonna make domestic violence something
in a 22-minute format?
And my bosses sort of just took my spin on it.
- So how long's it been since you got divorced?
- Well, when you're married to a redneck,
it's less of a divorce than an ethnic cleansing.
We're laughing at the fact that we made it out
and people don't have to go through it
to experience your joy about it.
Oh, Nadine, how did I ever stay in that marriage so long?
- You believed that people could change.
Now you know, that's just wrong.
- You can make jokes about the things
that are dark and painful.
- You did a real good job raising those kids, Grace.
- Yeah, I couldn't have done it alone.
Wait a minute.
- We had the same managers in New York
and I remember them saying,
"Her life's never gonna be the same."
- Yeah, I mean it, was crazy successful.
- [Narrator] Brett becomes an instant TV star.
- Please welcome the fabulous Brett Butler.
- Brett Butler.
- Are things different for you now
that you're so wildly successful?
- [Narrator] Yet, behind the scenes,
the picture isn't so rosy as Brett and producers
wrestle for creative control.
- I feel like Grace was my act with children thrown in.
- Ah!
- And other people had artistic credit and power over it.
- You know, because there was Brett's point of view.
There was also the point of view of Chuck Lorre,
also very opinionated.
So it was two nuclear missiles
sort of heading toward each other.
- Everybody talks about a strong woman.
I mean, she was that woman.
She didn't talk the talk, she walked the walk.
- [Narrator] After a single season,
show creator Chuck Lorre is replaced as showrunner.
- Chuck Lorre worked with Charlie Sheen.
I mean, when you get Chuck Lorre to quit,
you gotta be a handful, honey.
You a handful!
- The show had been on for a season when they approach me
about being the executive producer.
- I was on my own for 14 years
and now there's 200 people it takes to make this show.
- When you're a stand-up,
nobody tells you what to do, but you.
- She had to work with others as an actress.
You have to say the words that someone else wrote,
and she wasn't skilled in that.
- I wish she were a little more irregular,
I wish she could get depressed,
and sometimes Grace is just bloody
not walking out that door.
You know, you should call back in the daytime
where you can talk to the kids.
I was given a chance to play a character
that was pretty complicated.
And sometimes writers would say,
"Well, people won't like it if Grace does that."
And then I'd say, "But she can do it.
She's not always perfect."
We miss you, Jimmy.
- I did about six or seven episodes of "Grace Under Fire."
It wouldn't kill you to come to the gym with me
once in a while.
And she would rewrite scenes in between takes it.
- It wouldn't kill you to get a library card
and maybe have a date with an old broad
that doesn't live at aerobics class.
- And it would always be funnier
than what the writers gave her.
- Give me one good reason.
- That energy we don't spend in aerobics
has to end up somewhere, doesn't it, honey?
- We had a lot of writers on the staff
and they'd become so discouraged
by her throwing scripts out.
And I would have to say to them,
"We're not writing for Brett,
we're writing for this character, whose name is Grace."
When she would be angry, would be all the more menacing.
- She could be intimidating.
- Everybody was afraid of her.
I thought, I signed a contract for two years,
I can't, it's gonna kill me.
And so I went to Marcy Carsey and said,
"I'm not coming back."
- [Narrator] Beyond the power struggles,
Brett is also grappling
with more insidious Hollywood pressure.
- She was asked to shed some lbs
to be more palatable, let's say.
- When you look back and you watch any clips,
she looked amazing.
- So, uh, how do you feel this morning?
- It breaks my heart that no one was around her to go,
"You look fabulous, they can go and jump off a cliff."
- When I heard about Brett starting to act out,
I wasn't shocked because it seemed to me that happens a lot.
- Hollywood is a business about finding your worth
and getting external validation.
Anybody tells you something otherwise is full of crap.
She started getting really self-deprecating in her comedy.
She was always to a degree, right, which I found fun,
but then it became more about disliking
her physical appearance and needing to augment,
and I was like, you're beautiful.
- I, actually, with the nerve to have bleached hair
and fake tits and complain about how phony this town is.
Thank you.
- The deep insecurity was on full display.
I think she had been taking pills
to sort of shed the weight.
There was a downward spiral that seemed to happen.
- I was taking narcotic pain killers and I wasn't drinking.
It was just drugs, it was coke and Vicodin,
and I was barely making it.
I was taking dozens of Vicodin every day.
- I knew it wasn't gonna end well unless she got sober.
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] At the height of her fame,
Brett Butler is buckling under the pressures of Hollywood.
- She's now star and executive producer
of her own top-rated sitcom, "Grace Under Fire."
- Gotta keep your ratings and keep the show,
and it was all on her 'cause she insisted it was on her.
That's a ton of pressure.
- People who become stars,
it's not so much as what they have extra
that drives them into being a star,
it's what they're lacking,
and your hoping that fame and fortune and all that
will cure whatever's ailing you.
And once you get there and you realize it doesn't cure you,
now you're really screwed because the
that would fix everything didn't,
so what are you gonna do now?
She was not sober,
so the acting out period became even more extreme.
- Then it got really interesting.
I started to see this different side of her.
- When the lead character on a sitcom starts to take drugs
when he or she has committed to sobriety in the past,
it's probably gonna ruin the formula, that puts it mildly.
- Couple of phone calls I had with Brett,
I knew she was high.
Once you start down that path, taking more,
that's what the disease is, is more.
I'll take more and I'll feel better.
She was struggling and trying to get sober and not sober
and, you know, you're talking to somebody,
you're talking to the disease, you're not talking to her.
It's almost a waste of time,
but I wasn't gonna hang up on her.
- You're doing a show right outside of a volcano
and at any moment that volcano can erupt
and you might have to pick up all your stuff
and leave before the lava pours over you.
- [Narrator] Brett tries to clean herself up,
shutting down production more than once
while she attempts rehab.
- [Brett] I remember when I could afford the best rehab.
It's really fancy and they have a sous chef.
I would be like, "You guys,
this is not gonna help me get sober."
- [Narrator] Reports of her bad behavior are everywhere.
- [Reporter] Comedian Brett Butler likes to kid
about being a hell razor,
but her former coworkers say it's no joke.
- [Narrator] Brett returns to set,
but as the seasons progress, so does her addiction.
- I've had a rough couple of months, that's why I'm here.
I love you, I love this show,
and Betty Ford has really crappy security.
- You saw the difference between season one-
- Bedtime.
- [Ron] And the last season.
- Nobody start with me.
I want the Snickers bar I left in the bottom
of the bag of butter beans.
- Ah!
- And, you know, everybody goes through changes and whatnot.
- Does that mean you got my Snickers bar?
- But these were stark, drastic changes.
- Hi Bev. Will you do me a favor?
I need sugar and chocolate,
would you please buy me a candy bar?
I'll be your best friend or bodyguard.
- I think everybody sort of realized the journey
that she was going on.
Toward the end, we would do an audience show,
a very regimented process.
Six o'clock, we start the show.
You know, she keeps saying, "In a minute, in a minute."
Seven o'clock, eight o'clock.
So when she would come out,
she felt bad for the audience for waiting,
so she would hand out money.
Like, you know, throw it out to the audience.
So the audience is like, "Oh, great.
They're giving out money on 'Grace Under Fire.'
You might have to wait, but yeah, they're giving out money."
- [Narrator] As Brett's behavior spirals,
it becomes a race to the finish line.
- You know, I think it was just like,
let's get to the syndication deadline.
Let's get to episode 100.
- You know, Carsey-Werner had a lot invested in it,
and if you had a hundred episodes,
it was worth exponentially so much more money
than if you had 60.
And of course, every year
there would be a new executive producer.
- [Narrator] The last person to sit in the hot seat
as executive producer is Tom Straw.
- What had happened was she had some difference with Straw
and, you know, things didn't work out the way she wanted.
- And it was show night,
and in front of the studio audience,
she threw a can of soda at his head.
- I do remember him coming to her and saying,
"Listen, pull it together, we've got a show to do."
And then he turned back around and he said,
"Oh, and by the way, you missed."
- They were able to finish shooting the rest of the show,
but that was it, that was the last episode.
All they needed was five or six more episodes
to get to syndication.
- Look, I didn't have to throw it all away at once,
but I got so... ing sick and tired of Hollywood.
- [Narrator] After five tumultuous seasons,
"Grace Under Fire" comes to an abrupt end.
- Her producers tell TV Guide the "Grace Under Fire" star
had daily fits of temper.
The show was finally shut down when Butler
had one of those tantrums in front of a live audience.
- I'm amazed that we got through five seasons
because you saw somebody that had so much potential
and, you know, you saw all the things happening
that sucked the creative and the energy out of her.
- It is hard to watch somebody self destruct.
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] After Brett's spectacular onset meltdown,
"Grace Under Fire" is abruptly canceled.
- Do you understand how out of line you have to be
to have people that you are making millions
and millions of dollars fire you?
You can get away with a lot of shit in Hollywood
if you're making them money.
- You know, the grapevine,
and it was like phone calls immediately
that she had thrown a can of Coke at the head producer
and they shut it down.
So Brett told me that she was high when she did that.
She doesn't remember.
The next day she wakes up,
she thinks she's going to rehearsal.
She drives to the set,
the guard says, "Ms. Butler, you're no longer here."
You know, "You don't have a sitcom."
She goes, "To hell with that."
She goes to her sound stage, it is cleared, it is gone.
All her sets, they had cleared out overnight.
That's how she knew it was over.
- [Narrator] For Brett, the show's cancellation
is a painful public humiliation.
- I felt shame because it was my fault that it stopped.
- I know when you're a public figure like that,
when you fall, you drag people with you
and it's a lot of jobs.
That's what she deals with.
- Brett would think of all the people who lost their jobs.
She always had a heart to her.
- I'm proud of Grace more than not
and I'm really sorry for what I did to dismantle it.
I was busy dying, but that's not really the point, you know?
- Not only would you hear chatter in the clubs,
but it was also all over our news.
- Imagine the public shame when there's no social media,
to be the biggest effing story out there
and it's just newspapers.
- And it made me sad to the point that I wouldn't look
because I love her so much that I was like,
I don't wanna know this, I want her to be okay.
- I felt like my soul was leaving my body on drugs
and I didn't even wanna leave my house.
I felt like dark things were there.
- [Narrator] Then an event on the news
captures Brett's attention.
- On the television, they said a man in Jasper, Texas,
had been dragged behind a truck until he was decapitated.
- [Reporter] He was apparently chosen at random
off the street simply because he was African-American.
- His name was James Byrd.
I wanted somebody, honestly,
white from the South to show up.
It said something to a part of me that still mattered
in this world when nothing else did.
It wasn't about, like, oh, I'm celebrity,
I'm going to a funeral.
I was infamous at that point.
And we go to the funeral and I ask, "Can I sit in the back?"
I just didn't want any attention to be brought to me.
I wanted just to be there with people.
I didn't take any drugs with me,
but I took these Canadian aspirin with codeine in them
so I wouldn't go into convulsions.
I closed my eyes while I was listening to this preacher
and I saw this wooden cross with nothing on it.
And then, like, I hear this voice go,
"I did it already, you're not even being original."
And this old black woman was sitting next to me,
and it was hot in the church and she was fanning me.
And I looked at this old woman and said,
"I'm self crucifying through addiction."
And she said, "Well, stop that shit!"
And she meant it, too.
- When you come to comedy,
if you haven't resolved some of your issues
within your childhood,
a lot of that just gets amplified
when you get some semblance of success
because it's working against you,
like, ah, you're gonna fail, and so you sabotage yourself.
- I have a friend who used to call it
The Six Degrees of Worthiness.
Every feeling you have that's uncomfortable or bad
comes down to, I'm not worth it.
And with that upbringing,
of course you're gonna feel broken.
- It was really surreal how one person's horrendous death
could have reached through and grabbed me that way.
I don't know how I did it.
I should have died stopping myself.
I stopped without any medical intervention or anything.
And I'm pretty sure, I'm not pretty sure,
I'm absolutely sure I'd be dead if I pick up again.
- [Narrator] In the years that follow,
Brett stays away from the spotlight.
- We were emailing a lot.
You worry, you pray for somebody
and hope that she stays sober and keeps her life going.
- I took jobs.
I did gigs that really didn't matter.
- [Host] "Grace Under Fire" herself, Brett Butler.
- I just wanna be damn careful
about going back into the machine.
- Like Brett Butler, we're all happy she's back, right?
- That's all.
- She's the only person who's had their head
in more toilets than me.
- I had to make sobriety matter more than anything else.
I got too close to the fan blade before,
I just didn't want it to happen again.
- [Narrator] To protect her sobriety,
Brett moves as far away from the Hollywood machine
as she can imagine.
- Brett went to Georgia and I talked to her a few times
down there when she was living there
and she had all the horses and the animals
and she felt very good about that.
- It really was great,
and a big reason I'm here is because of animals.
- [Narrator] Though Brett escapes the cruel spotlight
of Hollywood, she can't run from herself.
- She's got these animals around her and all of that,
but you're still thinking about
everything that happened back in LA.
- I have struggled with a lot of depression since then.
They say that depression is anger turned inward.
Maybe, I really don't know.
I do believe a lot of it is chemical.
- Brett was down in Georgia by herself, not good.
There's a saying, people like us,
like Brett and myself and other alcoholics.
Never go up into your head alone.
Don't go up there without a shotgun and a flashlight.
It's a dangerous place to be.
- Losing my sobriety wasn't an issue, it hasn't been,
and I'm so grateful for that,
but wondering about whether to live or not
has been one that's been hard.
I try to look at that as temporary, a temporary feeling.
I'm a big believer in the afterlife,
but I don't think that I should make it happen
sooner than it should, and that alone keeps me here.
- [Narrator] Isolated and depressed,
Brett faces a looming new problem.
Without a regular income, eventually she's unable
to keep up with her mortgage payments.
She's confronted with the foreclosure of her farm.
- Look, it was totally my fault.
I'd love to say I was drunk and did it,
but I wasn't drinking.
- [Narrator] During her reign on "Grace Under Fire,"
Brett had amassed a $25 million fortune.
Where did it all go?
- How you doing?
It's really hard to talk about.
I know that people assume things and I don't care.
I can't care.
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] Brett Butler made $25 million
working on "Grace Under Fire,"
but by 2012, she's blown her fortune.
- Well, you know, everybody will say,
"How do you blow all that money?"
I go, "Are you kidding me?
There are plenty of people
who will help you blow that money."
- No, no, no, s'il vous plait.
Je suis nouveau riche.
(Brett chuckles)
- So I'm not surprised by that.
- She gives more money than she has.
- We have that identity that we constructed for ourselves
and I am talented, I'm funny or whatever,
but I'm only a hundred thousand dollars worth of talent.
And so, when you get over a hundred thousand,
you say to yourself, whoa, wait,
this is not the thermostat I'm used to,
so I gotta get rid of all this excess
to get back down to the standard I'm used to.
- I was still punishing myself for everything that I'd done.
I was excelling in self-loathing.
- I had a brilliant therapist who used to say,
"Your relationship with money
is a reflection of your relationship with yourself."
And if you don't think you're worth something,
you wanna get rid of it, you wanna dispel and reject.
- [Narrator] After losing her farm,
Brett's saving grace comes from an unlikely source.
- The next time I saw her was on "Anger Management."
- I thought she was back down South,
and I'm half asleep on the couch and I hear the voice
and I open my eyes and she's playing like a bartender.
- [Narrator] Though Brett is still a Hollywood outcast,
Charlie Sheen throws her a lifeline.
- I play a bartender on it,
and for those of you who wonder if Charlie and I
get the irony of this, yes.
- Charlie was a big advocate for her.
You know, like minds, he saw a kindred spirit.
- We're a lot alike, you and I.
- Not really. Your voice is a lot lower than mine.
- And it worked.
- I absolutely loved her on "Anger Management"
as the bartender and that dynamic,
and I thought, yes.
- There's gonna come a night when you're gonna beg me
to go home with you.
- Okay, okay, but until then,
let's have a few more years of this
will they, won't they sexual tension.
- That's the Brett everyone needs to see.
That's the Brett I almost feel like Brett needed to be.
- Yeah, before I quit,
I used to drink that off-brand nighttime cold syrup.
I called it the wheezing, sneezing, aching, hacking,
age-to-leave-your-husbamedicine. Cine.
I am so grateful to Charlie. He saved my ass.
- [Narrator] Taking the job
means facing the Hollywood system that once shunned her.
- It's gotta feel really difficult to go,
wow, from this to this.
She's a tough broad if she's still in the game.
- [Narrator] Brett's standout performance
in "Anger Management" kicks off a slew of acting roles
in top tier production.
- Yes. What do you think he was doing up there?
- She's... ing good as an actress, without training.
How crazy is that?
- If you don't mind,
I'm just gonna sit here and smoke my coping mechanism.
- When I saw her pop up on "The Morning Show,"
I was, "Yes!"
- Hal is an addict and he needs help.
- He's not an addict, he just went through a rough spot.
- Mom, he is an addict!
- You are ruining dinner!
- And "Walking Dead."
She did some battleax part on "Walking Dead."
- My boy is dead.
- And I was just, like, so happy.
Oh, good, good.
- I'm not letting go of this baby.
- That little reinvention.
- I was signed originally to do one show
and I got to do six, so I'm really happy about that.
- [Narrator] But with 2020 comes a major blow
that brings Brett's world to a crashing halt.
- [Reporter] Coronavirus hitting
the entertainment industry now.
- [Reporter] Los Angeles has shattered record numbers
of infections and hospitalizations.
- Before COVID, she was getting jobs
and she just loves acting,
and then COVID happened and all that dried up.
- The decision was made to suspend audiences from our show.
- [Man] Pretty much anything that was
gonna go to production has stopped.
- I knew she wasn't doing great.
- [Narrator] After the loss of her farm,
Brett hasn't made a financial recovery.
She's living paycheck to paycheck
and still needs steady work to stay afloat.
- And if you're not getting that work,
how are you gonna make money?
The only way we know how to make money, for years,
was to do stand-up comedy or act.
- Yeah, when COVID hit, it affected everybody.
With Brett and her circumstances,
she really was fearing that she was gonna be evicted.
- Oof, what's that like?
Climbing the mountain and then, you know, falling back down.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Having lost her steady income,
Brett is on the brink of homelessness.
- I'd say the lowest point was GoFundMe.
- I saw the GoFundMe on social media,
and when you see something like that, you think it's a scam.
- Proudest moment I ever had, by the way, the GoFundMe.
Proudest moment, I'm being sarcastic.
- When it became more apparent that,
no, this is a real thing, I'm like, okay, well I can't not,
so I sent some dollars.
- The GoFundMe, as I understand it,
was started by a friend
and she let him put this GoFundMe out there,
very reluctantly, but it did help her
over a really hard bottom she was hitting.
Well, it brings out the haters, you know?
You get your fans who are more than happy to help you
and then, you know, there's another side to it.
I can't even begin to imagine what that's like.
- It's mostly from strangers.
They go like, "Well, if you had this
and you lost it all, screw you."
There's always gonna be judgemental people
and they're mean people.
- I think she needed to process the shame
of asking for that money.
And when people said nasty things,
her feeling was, I get it.
- She has to take responsibility for what happened
and then move forward.
- I've seen people experience hardship,
and unfortunately, the biggest ones in my life
have been self-inflicted.
I know people who've had worse and better lives than I
and it's carved them up.
And it's an excuse to drink, it's an excuse to get mad,
so the only person I've been mad at is me.
- You know, every once in a while,
we would talk about the show that was
and she acknowledged that she messed up.
- [Narrator] Brett has always found a way to move forward.
- I don't know drunk, out of control,
terrorizing everybody Brett, I never met that person.
I know sober Brett, getting better Brett,
you know, positive Brett.
She is a very dear friend.
- Brett Butler is one of the most resilient humans
on this earth, really and truthfully.
- [Connie] She was fearless about getting on that stage.
- Actually, my family's half Irish and half Swedish.
We're all alcoholic, but we're real quiet about it.
- Well, you know, just as fearless as you
you've gotta draw on that kind of strength
when you hit the bumps and you're on your way down.
You know, the empathy and the caring that she can give
to other people, I really want to see her
giving as much of that to herself right now.
And she is, she is coming into herself again.
- I'm still here and depression didn't take me out either,
and I think that'll get better, too.
- She's got a voice, and sober, it soars.
- I just want her to know there are people
that would love to see her come back to the stage.
- Brett is so talented and so smart,
whatever crap went on at "Grace Under Fire,"
for...'s sake, it's 30 years ago.
If everybody had to pay for shit they did 30 years ago,
nobody would be working.
I'm telling you, grow up and move on a little bit.
- She was something else.
Just pure unadulterated, funny from the gut.
Whatever pain she experienced from that fall,
she'll make it funny on stage.
- I'm not gonna be arrogant enough to say
God saved me for something special,
but I'm curious about what it is, you know?
- I would love to see her and how she's evolved.
- I think in an accent, I walk southern, I dream southern.
My boyfriend says in bed, I say y'all a lot.
- The honesty that you brought to the table and the humor
makes audience members go, "Wow, I can achieve and survive,"
and I think there are many stories
that I'd like to see on stage.
- Her legacy is that she had a show,
she shit it away, and she got back up on the horse and rode.
- My revolution is this big mouth telling jokes,
and when you're laughing, I can't tell who you vote for
and it doesn't... ing matter for my job.
I'm a comedian.
- I wouldn't count her out.
The money is not how you judge it, you judge it by the work,
and she could end up winning an Oscar.
- She's brilliant and the world needs more of her.
Hollywood loves nothing better than a comeback,
so I'm like, come home, sis.
She's that good that she could.
It's all for what she wants to.
- You know, the very funny Brett Butler
from her smash hit, "Grace Under Fire."
- God, I hope I get some acting jobs. I like acting.
As long as I'm wishing, I hope they're good ones.
I'd rather have a tiny part that's interesting.
Oh, Lord, I kind of wanna get out and do stand-up again.
I've had other comedians come up and tell me
that I gave them permission to talk about
some weird stuff in their own lives.
If I've given comedy anything, I think it's that.
If your wingspan is big enough,
then somebody else says, "I can do that, too."
It's the greatest feeling in the world.