The Tragedy Of Courteney Cox

Courteney Cox — who has had quite the transformation – may have enough money in the bank to last several lifetimes (she’s still getting millions of dollars every year for playing everyone’s favorite neurotic chef Monica Geller), appeared in two of the ’90s most-loved and most enduring franchises (“Friends” and “Scream”), and multiple accolades to her famous name. But the Hollywood regular of nearly 40 years certainly hasn’t had things all her own way.

Indeed, Cox’s life has been beset by various tragedies, hardships, and obstacles over the years, whether the deaths of her nearest and dearest, numerous career setbacks, or a whole host of relationship problems, not to mention a string of health and wellness issues. Here’s a look at the tragic side of the much-loved star.

Courteney Cox initially grew up with her same-named mother and businessman father Richard Cox in the Alabama city of Birmingham. But at the age of 10, her family life was thrown into disarray when her parents decided to file for divorce.

“The Shrink Is In” star, who, as the youngest of four children, was something of a daddy’s girl, was left further devastated when Richard moved to Panama City in Florida. Then, her mom walked down the aisle with Hunter Copeland, the uncle of The Police drummer Stewart Copeland.

But Courteney wasn’t the only party involved to have struggled with all the upheaval. Discussing the topic of divorce in a 2008 interview with the Daily Mail, Courteney said, “Before my dad died, he said one of his big regrets was that he hadn’t worked on their marriage enough.” The actor, who at that point was married to fellow “Scream” regular David Arquette, also admitted, “I get shocked by people getting divorced all the time, that’s why I choose to work on it.”

In 2001, Courteney Cox was left devastated when her beloved dad, Richard Cox, died from a rare form of skin cancer known as Merkel cell carcinoma. While braving the elements on an episode of adventure show “Running Wild with Bear Grylls” 15 years later, the actor revealed that she was still deeply affected by her loss.

Speaking about Richard’s final 18 months, Courteney told the host (via E! News), “He just didn’t want to go. So, it wasn’t like a surrender.” The “3000 Miles to Graceland” star also revealed that she did everything she could to prolong his life, including arranging for pioneering radioactive treatment in Switzerland. And her determination paid off.

Indeed, while Richard was initially given just six months to live on his initial diagnosis, he ended up living another 18. “Throughout that year and a half, even though he was doing chemo and all this stuff, he really had a great time,” Courteney noted.

In 2004, Courteney Cox became a first-time mom with the birth of daughter Coco. This occasion was all the more joyous due to the fact that the actor had previously experienced multiple miscarriages and fertility issues.

That same year, Cox revealed to NBC that she found it particularly difficult filming “Friends” whenever a baby-related storyline was introduced: “Sometimes, like I remember one time I just had a miscarriage and Rachel was giving birth. It was like that same time. Oh my God, it was terrible having to be funny.” The actor added that she initially had no concerns about getting pregnant due to her family history, but that all changed when she and then-husband David Arquette started to try for a baby.

The sitcom favorite also addressed the same subject during a candid chat on her own Facebook Watch series “9 Months with Courteney Cox” (via Today) in 2019. Speaking to former “Cougar Town” co-star Busy Phillips, she said, “I had a lot of miscarriages, and I don’t think that’s something that people shouldn’t talk about, because … it was unfortunate but it happens … I didn’t want to give up.” After learning that her body produced a fetus-attacking antibody, Cox subsequently went through two rounds of IVF, the second of which proved to be successful, resulting in baby Coco.

As well as struggling to conceive a child, Courteney Cox also found it difficult to cope once she eventually became a first-time mother. In an admirably honest chat with AHN (via People) in 2007, the “Mr. Destiny” actor revealed that although she originally dreamed of having a large family like she grew up with, the reality became very different.

“I used to want to have eight kids,” said Cox. “It was such a fantasy when I was younger because my mother, who was an only child, had four kids. Now, looking back, I don’t understand how she did it. I think the baby part — like, waking up early — is hard. Really hard.”

Cox went on to reveal that she also experienced postpartum depression for six months after giving birth to Coco in 2004. “Did I have the worst case of it? No. Women have hormones. It’s not easy and as we get older, it gets harder,” she explained. “But there’s ways to deal with it and stay in balance.” The Alabama native then explained that she was able to work through the condition — which has also affected the likes of Brooke Shields, Serena Williams, and Kylie Jenner — with the help of therapy.

Courteney Cox and David Arquette were never afraid of revealing a little TMI during their over-a-decade-long marriage. They were especially candid whenever they rocked up to Howard Stern’s radio show. But there was one particular revelation that even left the shock jock open-mouthed.

In 2011, Cox explained that a decade earlier, her husband had attempted to instigate some action in the bedroom. The only problem was that she was grieving over the death of her beloved father, Richard, at the time. “This is one of our problems in our relationship whenever I would need consoling from David, he could not literally put his arm round me for one second without completely getting a boner,” she said (via Daily Mail).

This wasn’t the only time that Cox had to deal with a sex-obsessed husband in difficult circumstances. In fact, during the same Stern interview, the “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” star confirmed that Arquette had also got a little too frisky while the pair and their 6-year-old daughter Coco were vacationing at Disney World. “It was really not the place for it,” she added not unreasonably.

Having previously worked so hard to avoid the divorce courts, Courteney Cox and David Arquette finally admitted defeat in 2011 after 12 years of marriage. According to reports, both parties filed at the same time for irreconcilable differences, with their request going through officially two years later.

Cox — who had previously and repeatedly denied to the press that she and her fellow “Scream” star were splitting — proved to be just as candid about their relationship once it was over. Luckily for their daughter Coco — who won’t be allowed to chase acting stardom in her own right any time soon – she never had anything but positive things to say. In fact, the actor believes that she and Arquette were in a better place after their split than ever before.

“I don’t recommend divorce in general, but, you know, he is my best friend and we’ve both grown and changed,” she told “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” (via E! News) in 2014. “I think we both appreciate each other more. I hope he does. I do.” The pair have since continually shown public support for each other. In 2014, for example, Cox and her new beau, Johnny McDaid, turned up to the premiere of Arquette’s indie film “Sold.”

Getting older is a hardship for all of us. But in the fickle, youth-obsessed world of Hollywood, it’s a fact of life that celebrities fear the most. Just ask Courteney Cox, who freely admitted that she experienced a “midlife crisis” while realizing that she could no longer be classed as a spring chicken.

“I wasn’t able to come to terms with the fact that I’m getting older,” the “Shining Vale” star said on the “Awards Chatter” podcast in 2022 about that period. Cox also explained her belief that women have it much harder than men when it comes to aging, both inside and outside the showbiz bubble. “I think that women probably go through a lot more than people realize — I mean, between menopause, depression, being a mom to teenagers,” she related. “I think that, yeah, I think that we do go through a lot.”

Cox had previously spoken about the subject of aging while shooting “Cougar Town” in 2010. “One second ago I was the youngest person on the set and now I’m the oldest,” she told Emmy magazine (via Express) before discussing how her joints hurt and how she needs glasses to both read and use the computer.

On the surface, Courteney Cox may have always appeared as a strong, confident, and highly independent woman. But in a 2023 interview with Marie Claire, the actor admitted that she was once consistently consumed by doubt.

“I used to do a lot of things out of fear, even making connections with people, checking in with people … not taking a chance, a risk,” Cox said, going on to add that she’d often talk herself out of various things if she became too uncomfortable. This included certain film roles, too, with the Golden Globe nominee often believing that she lacked what the casting room required.

Luckily, through a mix of therapy and reflection, Cox has developed much more conviction in her abilities. Putting each thought out like a candle was one such coping mechanism she learned. “I think whenever you give wind or air or attention to things, they do get bigger,” she explained. “Why stay in the past or project into the future?”

Courteney Cox didn’t exactly sell the benefits of couples therapy in 2024 when she revealed that just one minute into a particular session with her fiancé, Snow Patrol guitarist Johnny McDaid, she was effectively dumped! While appearing on Minnie Driver’s podcast, “Minnie Questions,” the “Mothers and Daughters” star recalled how she was left blindsided by the development, which occurred after Cox and McDaid had gotten engaged: “So three years in, we broke up and it was really intense. We broke up in therapy. I didn’t know it was coming, whether I should have or not.”

The couple, who started dating in 2013, had attended the session to reflect on their boundaries. But it seems that McDaid had other ideas at the time. “He wasn’t trying to surprise me,” Cox claimed. “He was in that much pain in the relationship. There was that much that needed to be dealt with that he had to protect himself around his heart.” Luckily, the split proved to be only temporary, and the on/off couple has remained on ever since. “When we got back together, it was a different relationship,” she explained.

Whether through her 10-year stint as Monica Geller on “Friends,” her appearances in every entry of the “Scream” franchise, or her leading performances in “Cougar Town,” “Shining Vale,” and “Dirt,” Courteney Cox doesn’t seem to have been off our screens since the mid-1990s. But in 2022, the world-famous actor admitted that there was a period in her career when she felt surplus to requirements.

While guesting on the Variety podcast, “Just for Variety with Marc Malkin,” Cox recalled a recent fan encounter outside a New York hotel in which she was asked to sign one particular throwback photo: “How much could they get for those things? I mean, a picture of me in ‘Masters of the Universe’? It’s got to be worth about $10. But nevertheless, I thought, ‘Oh, wow. How did I get popular again?'”

Cox went on to say that following the end of “Cougar Town” in 2015, she felt as though her spell in the limelight may have come to an end. “I didn’t feel very relevant at the time,” she opened up. “I was focusing on something else. I was focusing on my relationship and didn’t focus as much on business side of things.” Luckily, and contrary to her fears, the actor soon discovered that people hadn’t forgotten about her.

In 2020, 19 years after her father, Richard, died from cancer, Courteney Cox also lost the mother she was named after. The “Family Ties” star didn’t confirm the news on social media at the time, but she did commemorate the one-year anniversary of her death in 2021 with a touching Instagram post. “Missing my sweet moma 12-9-2020,” Courteney captioned a snap of her namesake. The Alabama native was no stranger to sharing photos of her mother. Earlier on in 2020, she uploaded a heartwarming family snap alongside the words, “Here we are, my mom, Coco, and me wrapped together. I am so grateful to be my daughter’s mother, and my mother’s daughter.”

Sadly, she wasn’t the only “Friends” star to go through such a bereavement that year. The mother of Lisa Kudrow, who, of course, played kooky singer Phoebe Buffay in the TV phenomenon, also died in the early stages of the pandemic. Alongside fellow co-star and friend Jennifer Aniston, Cox was there to lend a shoulder to cry on. “These women came running to support, that was really nice,” Kudrow explained to People. “They came to the funeral, it wasn’t a lot of notice, and they were there.”

Courteney Cox shared more screen time with Matthew Perry than any other “Friends” castmate, even if Cox doesn’t necessarily always remember filming “Friends.” After all, the two characters were practically joined at the hip once they got together at the end of the fourth season finale. So her wisecracking co-star’s sudden death in 2023 inevitably hit her hard.

After a joint statement from the core Central Perk gang expressing their sadness over the news, each member then shared their own personal tribute to Perry. Cox, no doubt, left longtime fans in tears with the sentiments she shared on Instagram. “I am so grateful for every moment I had with you Matty and I miss you every day,” she captioned a video of the pair. “When you work with someone as closely as I did with Matthew, there are thousands of moments I wish I could share.”

Cox then referred to the video, in which Monica and Chandler are first seen sharing a bed together: “In this scene, before we started rolling, he whispered a funny line for me to say. He often did things like that. He was funny and he was kind.”

Having repeatedly expressed her concerns over aging, it’s perhaps little wonder that Courteney Cox resorted to various cosmetic procedures to help keep up her youthful appearance. But as she approached her 60s, the “Just Before I Go” director admitted that she had perhaps gone a little too far.

In a 2023 chat with the “Gloss Angeles” podcast, Cox revealed that she regretted her use of facial fillers, in particular, describing the look it gave her as a “little off.” The Screen Actors Guild Award winner went on to say, “You don’t realize what it looks like to the outside person and just doing too many fillers and then having to have them removed, which thank god they are removable. But I think I messed up a lot and now luckily I can, I was able to reverse most of that, and now I’m actually just older.”

Indeed, six years previously, Cox had managed to get all of her fillers dissolved, a procedure she remains eternally grateful for: “I look at pictures of me from when I thought I looked okay, and I can’t believe it.”

Courteney Cox had to deal with another aspect her appearance when she was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. The Coquette Productions founder was subsequently placed on a course of daily tablets to make up for the lack of hormones produced by her thyroid. However, she eventually experienced one of the medication’s side effects: hair loss.

“My hair was falling out and it turns out it’s because I have hypothyroidism and I think I got overmedicated because I’ve had it for so many years, your body changes,” Cox explained on the podcast, “Gloss Angeles,” going on to reveal that the evidence was all over her home’s cream-colored seats. The actor then added that, although the hair on her head eventually started to grow back to normal, her eyebrow hair then started shedding due to what she suspected to be further overmedication. “Anyway, they will come back,” Cox remarked matter-of-factly. “I went to a really good endocrinologist and I am on the right track.”