At some point in their careers, many actors distance themselves from Hollywood, oftentimes for a dark reason. Some, like Christina Applegate, who has multiple sclerosis, do so after being diagnosed with a serious illness. Others, like Roseanne Barr, who made headlines in 2018 with a racist tweet, are shying away from public controversy.

But then there’s Val Kilmer, who rose to fame in 1986 thanks to his portrayal of Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in the Tom Cruise-led blockbuster “Top Gun.” Despite his throat cancer diagnosis and numerous accusations of being difficult to work with on set threatening to derail his career, he has remained a consistent staple on screen, appearing in films almost annually since his 1984 debut in “Top Secret!” as Nick Rivers.

Though he managed to maintain steady work over the years in the midst of negative tabloid reports, taking on powerhouse roles like that of Jim Morrison in 1991’s “The Doors” and the titular superhero in 1995’s “Batman Forever,” Kilmer’s life has never been easy, even before he became a household name. As a child, the actor dealt with death, strained relationships, and other hardships, all of which left an impact on him as he entered adulthood and the limelight. Read on for the full tragic true-life story of Kilmer.

When Val Kilmer was 9 years old, his home life was drastically altered when his parents, Eugene and Gladys Kilmer, divorced. None of his peers had to deal with such trials, and it made him feel like the odd kid out. “It was obvious to me at the time that this was the biggest thing I’d been through,” Kilmer told The Telegraph. “It was seen as what it was — an odd event. That something bad had happened.”

Though Val, along with his older brother Mark Kilmer and younger brother Wesley Kilmer, went to live with Eugene following the divorce, he didn’t have a close bond with his father. He said in the same interview, “Things didn’t go well between my father and me for a very long time.”

Val also had a strained connection to Mark, with whom he butted heads over Eugene’s estate after his passing in 1995. Mark explained, “Val has no example in his life of a good relationship he can look to.” The siblings remained estranged for some time, but, following Val’s throat cancer diagnosis in 2015, began to put their differences aside, according to a source who spoke to Radar. “Mark is a well-regarded psychologist, so he doesn’t see eye-to-eye with Val’s Christian Science beliefs,” said the source. “It has caused a rift between them in the past, but now they’re finally getting closer again.”

Val Kilmer may have had strained relationships with his father and older brother, but this wasn’t the case with his younger brother. Therefore, when Wesley Kilmer died in a tragic accident in 1977, it greatly affected him. According to documents from the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office, Wesley, who had epilepsy, suffered a seizure and drowned in a spa located near the swimming pool while the Kilmers’ housekeeper, who was watching him at the time, was on a quick trip to the store.

“Well, my little brother was, um … just an amazing artist. A genius. When he died, the people at his funeral, the adults and children, it was amazing. They were all friends of his. I was sort of in awe of him,” Val told The Telegraph of Wesley, who was an aspiring filmmaker. In fact, Val believed that he could’ve been the next George Lucas or Steven Spielberg (who blew away the “Top Gun: Maverick” director with his praise) if he had the chance to make his dreams come true.

Despite this heartbreaking loss, Val had to quickly pivot to achieving his own goals. The future actor traveled directly from Wesley’s funeral to Julliard, where he was accepted into the institution’s drama school, to begin his journey to the big screen. Still, Wesley never left his thoughts, with Val using his late brother’s name to check into hotels when he started to become recognized in public.

“Top Gun” — and Val Kilmer’s career — came close to looking a lot different. In his memoir “I’m Your Huckleberry,” released in 2020, Kilmer reflected on how he initially wanted nothing to do with the film or the role of Iceman. He wrote (via NBC News), “I didn’t want the part. I didn’t care about the film. The story didn’t interest me.”

Regardless of his feelings, his agent pressured him into doing the audition, which Kilmer tried to purposely botch. “I read the lines indifferently and yet, amazingly, I was told I had the part,” he said. “I felt more deflated than inflated.”

Eventually, he started to feel differently about “Top Gun,” which grossed almost $8.2 million domestically during its opening weekend. In fact, the tables turned more than three decades later, when Kilmer was saddened to learn that he wasn’t being asked to return for the sequel, 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick.” This time, instead of doing all in his power to not get hired, he went above and beyond to reprise Iceman and once again share the screen with Tom Cruise. This involved Kilmer coming up with an entire Iceman storyline for “Top Gun: Maverick.” “I’d not only contacted the producers but created heartrending scenes with Iceman,” he said. “The producers went for it. Cruise went for it. Cruise couldn’t have been cooler.”

“Batman Forever” may have been a hit among the masses, bringing in over $52.7 million domestically at the box office during its opening weekend in 1995, but leading man Val Kilmer is noticeably absent from the 1997 follow-up film “Batman & Robin,” which stars George Clooney as the superhero. That’s because Kilmer (who may or may not be a better Batman than Robert Pattinson) and director Joel Schumacher clashed heavily on set, with Schumacher describing the actor (via The Telegraph) as “childish and impossible,” and “the most psychologically disturbed human being I have ever worked with.”

Schumacher isn’t the only person to view Kilmer, who is notoriously particular about his work, in such a negative light. Early on in his career, he earned quite a bad reputation in Hollywood, with numerous directors coming forth over the years to share their negative encounters. John Frankenheimer, the second director of 1996’s “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” told Entertainment Weekly, “I don’t like Val Kilmer, I don’t like his work ethic, and I don’t want to be associated with him ever again.”

Kilmer is alleged to have burned a “Dr. Moreau” cameraman with a cigarette, ordered everyone on the set of 1997’s “The Saint” to not make eye contact with him, and fired a prop gun while filming 1993’s “The Real McCoy” because director Russell Mulcahy didn’t give him his way for a certain scene. On his behavior, Kilmer said (via The Telegraph), “If I’m demanding, which I don’t think I am, it’s for the good of the picture.”

In 1988, on the set of “Willow,” Val Kilmer (who had to be written out of the 2022 “Willow” TV series at the last minute) and Joanne Whalley fell hard and fast for each other, tying the knot mere months after their initial meeting. However, their whirlwind romance wasn’t meant to last forever. Eight years later, while watching CNN from his hotel room in the Virgin Islands, where he was filming “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” Kilmer was shocked by the news report that appeared on the TV: Whalley had filed for divorce from him due to irreconcilable differences.

“It’s a really weird thing, modern divorce. I found out I was getting divorced on television. That was kind of weird,” Kilmer told The Telegraph. Still, he’s worked to make sure the two children he shares with Whalley — Mercedes, born in 1991, and Jack, born in 1995 only a few weeks before the divorce filing — weren’t as negatively impacted as he was in his youth. “It’s more normal to be divorced now,” he said. “It’s not something bad now that parents just ‘love each other differently’ and say the things that counselors teach them to say when they don’t know what to say to their kids.”

Kilmer has a close bond with Mercedes and Jack, both of whom are following in his Hollywood footsteps. He and his daughter shared the screen in 2020’s “Paydirt,” while Jack served as an associate producer and narrator for the 2021 documentary “Val.”

Body positivity might be widely celebrated in modern society, but it was practically nonexistent in the early 2000s when tabloids penned entire articles about celebrities gaining or losing weight. Val Kilmer was the subject of many such articles, with the Daily Mail publishing one entitled “Val Kilmer goes from Batman to fatman” in 2007 after he was spotted on the beach sans six-pack.

Then in 2012, the actor was critiqued by the media for appearing too thin. According to a TMZ source, Kilmer realized one day that he wasn’t happy with his wellness, and took steps — like eating clean and increasing his daily movement — to get back on track. Fed up with the criticism of his appearance, Kilmer released a statement on Facebook, explaining that he also needed to achieve a slimmer physique to portray Mark Twain in a film that he was writing and directing at the time.

“Can’t win in this crazy town. Too heavy for too many years and now gossip says, too thin!” he said in the post. “Mark Twain was a thin man, and finally after the usual amount of effort, I’m thin again too. Perfect health. Having a ball with my kids over the holidays, making art while doing rewrites, meeting actors and preparing to direct my film, and of course shopping.”

Over the years, Val Kilmer has found himself in several financial predicaments. A major one came in 2011 when ex-wife Joanne Whalley took out a lien on his 5,328-acre Pecos River ranch in New Mexico after he failed to pay the required $27,500 in child support. Whalley also took out a lien in 2007 on her ex-husband’s home, but the situation was resolved the following year.

Then, in 2013, Kilmer had a $500,000 lien filed against him after Executive Consulting claimed he hired them in 2011 to assist with his financial woes, but he never paid the agreed-upon rate of $128,000. The actor also had his share of self-inflicted tax issues, with the IRS filing a lien against him in 2010 after he neglected to pay $500,000 in federal taxes.

Amid everything, Kilmer tried — and failed — for several years to sell his New Mexico ranch for $33 million, which he put up for sale in 2009. By 2011, after no movement, he was forced to drop his asking price to $18.5 million.

In 2015, Val Kilmer’s world was changed forever when he was diagnosed with throat cancer. Initially, due to his Christian Scientist beliefs, he had no intention of seeking conventional medical treatment, instead believing that he could make himself better through prayer and working with a “Christian Science Practitioner.” However, the concern of his children made him think differently, and Kilmer agreed to undergo surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

At the time of this writing, Kilmer has been cancer-free since 2016, though there are some lingering aftereffects that he’s had to learn to live with. These include a tracheotomy, a voice box to help him speak, and a feeding tube. Despite the efforts of his medical team, Kilmer holds fast to the belief that his own prayers are what led to him being cured. “That’s from radiation and chemotherapy. It’s not from cancer,” he told The New York Times of the tracheotomy. “That ‘treatment’ caused my suffering.”

Still, these new challenges haven’t been all bad. On X, formerly known as Twitter, Kilmer wrote, “When one thing is taken, though, another is given. With little voice, my creative juices were boiling over and pouring out of me. I started creating again, painting, writing anything I could. I felt the art healing me.”

As woman after woman came forward in 2017 with sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein, actress Caitlin O’Heaney found the courage to share an alleged incident of physical assault by Val Kilmer that occurred in 1989 during the making of “The Doors.”

During an audition for the role of Jim Morrison’s girlfriend Pamela Courson, which was eventually secured by Meg Ryan, O’Heaney was asked to read through a heated scene between Pamela and Jim. She claimed to BuzzFeed that, while running through the scene, the actor hit her in the face. “When I got to the room and Val Kilmer picked me up and (shook) me, throwing me down to the floor, (director Oliver) Stone just stood there the whole time laughing,” said O’Heaney, who added, “I went down to my car and I cried for about 20 minutes.”

However, casting director Risa Bramon Garcia remembers things differently, telling BuzzFeed that Kilmer never struck O’Heaney in the face. Though Kilmer did, in fact, pin her to the wall, this was, according to Bramon Garcia, part of the scene, and O’Heaney was told about it prior to the start of the audition. “It was way blown out of proportion,” she told the outlet. “I am not somebody who takes this stuff lightly. I can tell the difference between something that’s abusive and a moment that got carried away … but it was all in the context of work. (O’Heaney had) a very extreme reaction to a situation that to me was not extreme at all.”

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN’s National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

Due to the tracheostomy, Val Kilmer’s voice was permanently damaged, drastically affecting his everyday life and career. “I can’t speak without plugging this hole (in my throat). You have to make the choice to breathe or eat,” he says in the 2021 documentary film “Val” (via People). “It’s an obstacle that is very present with whoever sees me.”

Still, Kilmer is finding new and creative ways to communicate, largely thanks to Sonantic. After the platform was fed hours of archival footage of Kilmer speaking, this British startup used advanced AI to recreate his voice, which is accessible to him in both personal and professional settings. The actor said in a statement (via Variety), “As human beings, the ability to communicate is the core of our existence and the effects from throat cancer have made it difficult for others to understand me. The chance to tell my story, in a voice that feels authentic and familiar, is an incredibly special gift.”  

Additionally, despite his communication hurdles, Kilmer is continuing to add to his filmography with the help of Sonantic. A major achievement for him came in 2022 when he reprised the role of Iceman in “Top Gun: Maverick” — a return that made Tom Cruise cry. Kilmer’s diagnosis and the aftereffects were even written into the script, with Iceman dying of cancer in the movie.

From Cindy Crawford and Angelina Jolie to Cher and Ellen Barkin, Val Kilmer’s lineup of high-profile ex-girlfriends is a lengthy one. However, despite his once-vibrant dating life, he admitted in his memoir, “I’m Your Huckleberry,” that he hasn’t been in a relationship for 20 years. He wrote (via People), “The truth is I am lonely part of every day.”

Though each breakup came with its share of heartache, his split from Daryl Hannah, whom he was briefly linked to in 2001, was the worst by a longshot, with the actor admitting to crying daily for over a year after they parted ways. “Lord knows I’ve suffered heartache. But Daryl was by far the most painful,” he said (via NBC News), adding, “I know I would love her with my whole heart forever and that love has lost none of its strength. I am still in love with Daryl.”

Unfortunately for Kilmer, Hannah has been married to singer-songwriter Neil Young since 2018. Still, he has maintained a strong friendship with Cher, his ex of the early ’80s who aided him following his throat cancer diagnosis. In his memoir, he wrote, “Once Cher works her way inside your head and heart, she never leaves. For her true friends, her steadfast love and loyalty never die.”