A new documentary about late child star Gary Coleman explores allegations of his ex-wife Shannon Price’s involvement in his tragic death.
“Gary,” streaming now on Peacock, features interviews with several of Coleman’s friends who claim that Price, 39, was responsible for the “Diff’rent Strokes” star’s death at age 42 in May 2010.
Darren Nord, a friend of Coleman’s, said his death was “suspicious,” while his former manager, Dion Mial, said of the tragedy, “We were absolutely stumped because there were way too many questions with no answers.”
Price — who was married to Coleman from 2007 to 2008, but still lived with him after their divorce — defended herself in the documentary, insisting that she had nothing to do with his passing.
“The fact that people come out and say, ‘She murdered Gary. She pushed him down the stairs.’ That really hurt me,” said Price in the film.
According to Price, on the day of Coleman’s death, the diminutive actor was in the kitchen preparing food for her after his latest dialysis treatment due to kidney disease. Price said she could tell Coleman “wasn’t feeling that well.”
“I heard a big loud boom,” she recalled. “I was, like, ‘Gary? Gary?’ And I heard nothing. I got out of bed and went downstairs, and there he was laying down on the floor with blood around his head.”
The documentary includes the recording of Price’s 911 call after she allegedly discovered Coleman on the floor in a puddle of blood.
“I just can’t be here with the blood. I’m sorry,” she told police on the call. “I got blood on myself. I don’t want to be traumatized right now.”
Price described the call as “frantic” in the doc.
“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to think,” she said. “It was a decent amount of blood, and it just freaked me out. I did not want to intervene where the blood was because I knew help was coming. It’s not that I didn’t help him. I helped him. Clearly, I helped him.”
Price did not accompany Coleman to the hospital.
“I was not in the right frame of mind to have gone with him,” she explained. “I was frantic. I was stressed. Anxiety. Sad. Just stuff like that, that any normal person would feel.”
Price said she talked to Coleman on the phone later that day.
“He’s, like, ‘I have a really bad headache. I think I’m just gonna go to sleep,’ ” Price recalled. “I was, like, ‘I’ll talk to you later. I love you.’ He’s, like, ‘I love you too.’
“And that’s the last thing he said to me.”
The next day, Price learned that Coleman had an intracranial hemorrhage. He went into cardiac arrest and ended up on life support, at which point Price made the decision to pull the plug after she said the doctors told her Coleman wasn’t going to survive.
“The decision to take him off life support was the hardest thing I ever had to do,” said Price.
However, Price’s decisions during the last two days of Coleman’s life didn’t sit well with those closest to the late star.
Coleman’s ex-girlfriend, Anna Gray, said Price “was more worried about herself than the person she was calling 911 for.”
Gray also questioned why Price let doctors take Coleman off life support after just two days, saying that Coleman’s wishes were to be kept alive for two weeks in the event of an incident like that.
However, Price countered that claim.
“On the medical directive, he said if there were two or more doctors that stated that he’s not gonna come out of it, then to take him off life support. There were enough doctors and medical staff that told me his condition and told me he wasn’t gonna get better.”
However, Gray said she still doesn’t believe Price is innocent in Coleman’s death.
“I think her actions speak volumes, and I don’t have to say much more than that,” she said.
Mial pointed out that Coleman “didn’t have that far to fall” given he was only 4-foot-8.
“I personally, in my opinion, do not think that he fell,” said Coleman’s friend, Brandy Buys.
At the end of “Gary,” Price reiterated that she did not kill the “Silver Spoons” star.
“I broke down. I cried. How can people be so evil and think that I did this? Why? Because I’m the ex-wife? I’m the evil person, right?” she continued. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t touch him. I didn’t hurt him. I wasn’t near him. Nothing happened.”
Earlier in the documentary, though, Price did admit that she and Coleman got physical with each other during their marriage.
“I slapped him a couple times,” she said. “Nothing major. Nothing like a red flag. People smack each other. They hit each other. People do it. If you deny it, you’re crazy.”
