![]() ![]() Over the years, Karen sought therapy for her anorexia. In 1979, he entered rehab and successfully kicked his addiction. “I just lost my will to do much of anything,” says Richard, who calls their 1978 album, Christmas Portrait, “not a true Carpenters Christmas record” because he did very few of the arrangements. At one point, the 6-foot-tall musician weighed a skeletal 140 pounds. As his tolerance grew, he began skipping meals. Richard, meanwhile, became addicted to Quaaludes, which he’d begun taking to help him sleep. “Nonetheless, she continued to sing as beautifully as ever.” “It had gotten so bad that she had to lie down between shows,” Richard recalls. “Richard said she liked to work more than he did.”īut by 1975, she weighed just 91 pounds. “Whenever Karen was struggling with anything, she threw herself into her work,” explains author Chris May. Yet no matter how thin or weak she looked, she always rose to the occasion. Karen’s dieting, which she began in earnest in 1967, became a bigger obsession. We said, ‘We hate it.’ They said, ‘Learn to love it.’ We never learned to love it.”Īs their stars rose higher, the pressures increased. “They showed up with this heart album cover. The pair hated the album cover art for Close to You, but were bullied into accepting it. “If you look at those schedules, especially all those one-nighters, we didn’t need to be doing them,” says Richard, who notes that the Carpenters did not have a manager to protect them. Very quickly, the Carpenters became a marquee act, and the pressure on the two siblings from the L.A. ![]() ![]() “It’s still my proudest achievement,” Richard says. Their first album didn’t go anywhere, but their second included the single “(They Long to Be) Close to You.” The song had been previously recorded by Dionne Warwick, Dusty Springfield and actor Richard Chamberlain - but Richard’s fresh arrangement and Karen’s warm caramel voice took it to No. Karen was just 19 and Richard was 23 when they signed with A&M Records in 1969. ![]() We were headlining Vegas a little over a year from when we hit. “We really were an overnight sensation,” he says. You can see the text providing warnings, yet the image becomes idol, and you ignore the caution.Inside Karen Carpenter's Struggle With Anorexia Nervosa: 'She Was Afraid of Food'Īlong the way, Richard also hopes to set the record straight on some of the myths and rumors surrounding Karen’s illness, his own struggle with addiction and the pressure and stress that fame put on their lives. This is twisted, it makes me feel twisted, and all too aware of the voyeuristic pleasures associated with looking at these women. We look at celebrities to feel better about ourselves. Even the image above, I haven't been able to stop looking at it, comparing their appearances, how Richie used to look, and contemplating if she looks better smaller, or what could be her ideal. And people continue to make a lot of money off of it. People made money off of it, a lot of money off of it. Karen's death started a discussion on the impact of pressures to be skinny, but I can't help to wonder what the motivation for providing this media and educational resources about anorexia was. I think Superstar: The Story of Karen Carpenter got to that a bit, specifically in the interview section of less than famous experts who discussed her life, but ultimately the film still focused a lot on her eating disorder. All I'm trying to put out there is that I think Karen deserves to be remembered as more than just a face of anorexia and bulimia. ![]()
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