Later that year, she saw a photo of herself at a concert which made her appear "heavy". She hired a personal trainer who told her to change her diet, which caused her to build muscle, making her seem heavier rather than slimmer. Karen fired the trainer, and began her own weight loss schedule by counting calories. She soon lost about 20 pounds (1 st 6 lb) and hoped to lose more. Her eating habits saw her getting food off her plate by offering it to others.īy 1975, her weight was just 6 st 7 lb. Some fans had noticed and wrote to the pair to ask what may be wrong. She refused to publicly say she was in ill, and in 1981 she said she was just "pooped". Richard later said he and his parents didn't know how to help her. She told Richard that she needed help with her anorexia. She chose to be treated in New York City by psychotherapist Steven Levenkron. In the 1980s, Karen had also started using thyroid replacement medication, which increased her metabolism, and laxatives, which made food pass quickly. Her condition continued to get worse, and she lost even more weight. In September 1982, she was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, where she was placed on intravenous drip. The procedure was a success, and she started gaining weight, but this put a strain on her heart. She managed to keep to a stable weight for the rest of her life after this point. She looked frail, but according to friend Dionne Warwick, she appeared outgoing, telling everyone: "Look at me! I've got an ass!" On January 11, 1983, Karen made her final public appearance at a gathering of past Grammy Award winners. On February 1, 1983, Karen saw her brother for the last time, discussing plans for a new Carpenters album. On February 4, she collapsed in her bedroom at her parents' home. Paramedics said her heart was beating once every 10 seconds, and she died at Downey Community Hospital at 9.51am.Īn autopsy ruled out drugs or a medication overdose, describing her death as "emetine cardiotoxicity due to or as a consequence of anorexia nervosa". She had a blood sugar level of 1,110 milligrams per decilitre, more than ten times the average. Was Karen Carpenter married and did she have children?.The coroner said that Carpenter's heart failure was caused by repeated use of ipecac syrup, an over-the-counter emetic used to induce vomiting. Karen Carpenter once said: "As long as we're on the road most of the time, I will never marry". She later dated the likes of Mike Curb, Tony Danza, Terry Ellis, Mark Harmon, Steve Martin and Alan Osmond.Īfter a quick romance, she married real-estate developer Thomas James Burris on August 31, 1980, in the Crystal Room of the Beverly Hills Hotel.īurris was divorced with an 18-year-old son, and was nine years older than her. She was said to have desperately wanted children, but Burris had undergone a vasectomy and refused to get an operation to reverse it. Karen's friends also claimed he was abusive towards her. In 1981, Carpenter and Burris broke up, and she filed for divorce on October 28, 1982, while she was in Lenox Hill Hospital.But there was a tragic discrepancy between her public and private selves. Offstage, away from the spotlight, she felt desperately unloved by her mother, Agnes, who favoured Richard, and struggled with low self-esteem, eventually developing anorexia nervosa from which she never recovered. In 1996 journalist Rob Hoerburger powerfully summed up Karen Carpenter's tribulations in a New York Times Magazine feature: "If anorexia has classically been defined as a young woman's struggle for control, then Karen was a prime candidate, for the two things she valued most in the world – her voice and her mother's love – were exclusively the property of her brother Richard. At least she would control the size of her own body." And control it she did.
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