Relive Jim Carrey’s dramatic rise and fall as he confesses he ‘needs money’ following slew of controversies

Thanks to his impressive ability to make people laugh and dedication to his roles, Jim Carrey completely dominated the movie industry throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

He was once one of the biggest Hollywood actors on the planet, but after facing a slew of blows to his personal life and becoming embroiled in an array of scandals, the once-beloved actor has retreated heavily from the spotlight in recent years. 

Unsavory allegations surrounding the tragic suicide of his on-and-off girlfriend and his multiple eyebrow-raising actions and comments ultimately cast a dark shadow over his once booming career.

From the start, Jim had it rough – his family struggled financially when he was a kid, resulting in them becoming homeless when he was just 15 years old.

He was forced to drop out of school and worked as a janitor to help support his parents, turning to comedy to escape from his woeful days.

He fell deeply in love with making people laugh, and despite facing many nos – including being turned away from Saturday Night Live three times – Jim never gave up.

His hard work certainly paid off, as he was raking in millions by the time he was 35 thanks to his roles in beloved films like Ace Venture: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber.

Immediately, the world fell in love with his charming personality, but as his career flourished, his personal life began to crumble.

On the outside, the actor seemed to have it all, but he later admitted that he struggled with mental health issues behind the scenes.

He also failed to find love, going through a series of extremely public splits that only made things harder.

During the 2010s, Jim began to descend in a downward spiral that led to his career slowing down significantly.

He faced immense public scrutiny after ‘forcibly’ kissing a then-20-year-old Alicia Silverstone on stage at an awards show and was slammed for making a slew of controversial comments about vaccines.

But most notable was when he became embroiled in a shocking wrongful death lawsuit following his lover’s suicide.

He was accused of providing her with prescription pills that he ‘improperly obtained,’ and while the case was ultimately dropped, it seemed like Jim couldn’t shake his growing list of scandals and he announced that he likely wouldn’t act anymore unless a ‘script that’s written in gold ink’ was presented to him.

But a comeback could still be in the cards for the comedian, 62, who is now gearing up to return to the big screen for the first time in years for Sonic the Hedgehog 3, after previously confessing that he was thinking of ‘retiring’ from acting for good.

He recently admitted that he decided to act again partly because he ‘needed money,’ leaving many to wonder how he went from a Hollywood leading man who racked up a $300 million fortune by starring in box office smash hits to a cash-strapped former comedian who hardly ever shows his face in public.

As he returns to the spotlight, FEMAIL has recapped his dramatic rise and fall from start to finish.

From his impressive career to his most controversial moments and his heartbreaking love life, take a look back at Jim’s rollercoaster ride journey.

Turning to comedy to escape from his difficult childhood: Jim was forced to drop out of school to work at age 15 after his family became homeless

Jim, who grew up in Ontario, Canada, had a knack for making people laugh from a young age, and by the time he was 10 years old, he said that he could do ‘about 150’ different impressions.

As a kid, he was so determined to become a famous comedian that he wrote a letter to Carole Burnett and asked for a job on her show, but she unfortunately told him they ‘weren’t hiring children at that time.’ 

He faced hardship throughout his childhood, however, as his family struggled financially leading to them becoming homeless when he was 15. 

He had to drop out of school to work and help support his family, landing a job as a janitor at a local tire factory.

All the while, he never gave up on his dream, and fell even more in love with comedy as a way to escape his woeful days.

He began performing live comedy at clubs in downtown Toronto, and they were so popular he soon started getting paid for them.

In the late 1970s, he began dabbling in TV and movies, voicing a character in The All-Night Show and starring in the made-for-TV film Rubberface.

He was then asked to open up for Rodney Dangerfield on his tour, which was a massive success. 

His first major role was in the 1984 NBC sitcom Duck Factory, which was followed by a part in the comedy film Finders Keepers. 

His other early acting credits include the horror comedy Once Bitten, Francis Ford Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married, and the TV series In Living Color.

And while he was slowly starting to become a star in Hollywood, the actor’s main goal was still to become a top comedian. But unfortunately, he struggled to make that dream a reality. 

He auditioned for Saturday Night Live three different times in the early years of his career, but was rejected on every occasion.

After his third denial, he realized stand-up comedy and impressions could only get him so far, and he decided to start focusing more on his acting.

Becoming a Hollywood sensation… but at a cost: As his career flourished, Jim faced a slew of blows to her personal life

Everything changed for Jim after he starred in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective in 1994. 

The movie was a huge success and transformed him into a massive star practically overnight.

He then went on to act in The Mask and Dumb and Dumber, which were also box office hits, cementing his status as a Hollywood’s newest sensation.

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Jim also landed roles in Batman Forever, The Cable Guy, Liar Liar, The Truman Show, Man on the Moon, Me, Myself & Irene, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Bruce Almighty, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Fun with Dick and Jane, The Number 23, Yes Man!, and A Christmas Carol.

During those years, he accumulated a whopping six Golden Globe nominations, two of which he won.

He notably became the first comic actor to receive an upfront $20 million salary for The Cable Guy, and according to Variety, that has remained the standard amount of money given to actors to get them into a movie.

But as his career flourished, the actor faced a slew of blows to his personal life behind the scenes.

He struggled to find love, going through multiple heartbreaking and extremely public splits throughout his career, before becoming embroiled in a shocking wrongful death lawsuit.

He married former actress Melissa Womer in 1987, and together, they welcomed a daughter, named Jane, later that year.

But their marriage came to an end in 1995, after eight years together.

He then went on to wed his Dumb and Dumber co-star Lauren Holly in 1996, but that romance didn’t even last a full year.

Over the next few years, he was linked to a slew of stars including Renee Zellweger, January Jones, and Jenny McCarthy, but all of those relationships fizzled out too.

In 2012, he started dating a makeup artist named Cathriona White, but she passed away from a prescription drug overdose in 2015.

Her death was ruled as a suicide, but her estranged husband Mark Burton later sued the actor, claiming he’d caused her mental distress that contributed to her suicide.

Mark also alleged that Jim ‘improperly obtained prescriptions for Ambien and the powerful opioid oxycodone under the alias Arthur King,’ and gave them to Cathriona, according to the The Oxford Eagle.

‘What a terrible shame,’ Jim responded in a statement afterwards. ‘It would be easy for me to get in a back room with this man’s lawyer and make this go away, but there are some moments in life when you have to stand up and defend your honor against the evil in this world.

‘I will not tolerate this heartless attempt to exploit me or the woman I loved. I really hope that some day soon people will stop trying to profit from this and let her rest in peace.’

Cathriona’s mother also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Jim, but both cases were ultimately dismissed in January 2018.

He has also been open about how during the height of his fame, he quietly battled depression.

Back in 2017, he told i-Magazine, ‘At this point, I don’t have depression… [but] I had that for years.

‘Now, when the rain comes, it rains, but it doesn’t stay. It doesn’t stay long enough to immerse me and drown me anymore.’

He added, ‘I’m perfectly fine with everything that has happened, even the horrible sh*t you know, in life and in art. There is a lot of satisfaction about looking back at those things.’ 

His controversial later years: Jim became embroiled in a slew of scandals that eventually led to his retreat from the spotlight

Jim began to face a slew of controversies throughout the 2010s, which eventually caused him to largely retreat from the spotlight.

He faced severe backlash online over some of his actions and comments – most notable was his controversial stance on vaccines.

Back in 2015, he went on a fierce tirade against immunizations online.

He said he believed that the chemicals in the shots were causing a host of problems in children, and pointed to the growing number of autism cases in the country.

But his views were widely slammed due to the lack of medical proof. 

In 2022, he came under fire again after he condemned Will Smith over his infamous Oscars slap.

Will stormed on stage and hit host Chris Rock in the face after he made a joke about the actor’s then-wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. 

‘I was sickened by the standing ovation,’ Jim said of the moment afterwards on Gayle King. ‘I felt like Hollywood is just spineless en masse.

‘You do not have the right to walk up on stage and smack somebody in the face because they said words.’ 

Amid his comments, people on social media began bringing up things that Jim had done in the past that they found problematic, and branded him a ‘hypocrite.’

One person spoke about the time that he kissed then-20-year-old Alicia on stage at the MTV Movie Awards.

Footage of the incident, which occurred in 1997, showed a then-35-year-old Jim grabbing the actress by the head and planting his lips on hers, while she tried to push him off her.

‘It’s amazing that Jim Carrey sexually assaulted Alicia Silverstone by physically forcing her to kiss him on national TV, when she was [20], and it had literally no impact on his career whatsoever,’ the social media user wrote. ‘He’s such a complete piece of s*** on so many levels.’

‘Regardless of age or age gaps, what Jim Carrey did was ASSAULT. He’s scum and he had no business forcing himself on people,’ someone else agreed. 

Neither Jim nor Alicia have ever publicly spoken about the kiss, but it was reported that he ‘apologized’ to her backstage afterwards.

Throughout the 2010s, Jim still acted – his credits during those year include Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Kick-A** 2, the sequel to Dumb and Dumber, entitled Dumb and Dumber To, Dark Crimes, and the Sonic the Hedgehog films – but his career significantly slowed down.

He tried to pursue other endeavors – he released a children’s book, called How Roland Rolls, he dabbled in producing, and wrote a memoir, entitled Memoirs and Misinformation – but it seemed like he couldn’t shake his growing list of scandals.

Then, in April 2022, Jim revealed that he was thinking of quitting acting for good, while promoting Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

He told reporters that he was ‘probably’ retiring after the film, stating, ‘Well, I’m retiring. Yeah, probably. I’m being fairly serious.

‘It depends, if the angels bring some sort of script that’s written in gold ink that says to me that it’s gonna be really important for people to see, I might continue down the road, but I’m taking a break.

‘I really like my quiet life and I really love putting paint on canvas and I really love my spiritual life.

‘I feel like – and I feel like this is something you might never hear another celebrity say as long as time exists – I have enough. I’ve done enough. I am enough.’ 

The beginning of a comeback? Jim returned to the big screen for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 this year, and admitted that he did it because he ‘needs money’

But Jim’s still-loyal fans were left ecstatic when it was revealed that he would return to the screen again for Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which is set to premiere later this month. 

The actor then made the bold confession that he returned to acting because he ‘needed the money’ while promoting the flick last week.

‘You know, I bought a lot of stuff and I need the money, frankly,’ he said.

When asked about his past comments about retiring, he added, ‘That might’ve been hyperbole, yeah. 

‘I came back to this universe because I get to play a genius, which is a bit of a stretch.’

He also recently admitted that he would be willing to reprise his role as The Grinch for a How the Grinch Stole Christmas sequel, so there’s still hope that he’ll act again.

Thankfully, it was also revealed this week that the cash-strapped actor had come into some money because he had finally sold his Los Angeles estate, over a year after he first put it on the market.

An undisclosed buyer forked over $19.8 million for the five-bedroom, nine-bathroom mansion, a cool $10 million under the original February 2023 asking price, per SFGATE. 

While it didn’t fetch its initial number, Jim still walked away with a hefty profit, having scooped up the property for just $3.8 million back in 1994.