Tragic Details About Neil Patrick Harris

Neil Patrick Harris' acting career stretches all the way back to the late 1980s. His first credited role came in the feature film "Clara's Heart," but it didn't take long for the teenaged Harris to become a TV regular. Harris initially became known for playing the lead in "Doogie Howser, M.D.," but he's one of those rare child actors who became a true Hollywood star.

Harris is no longer just a TV actor. Sure, some of his biggest roles — like Barney Stinson in "How I Met Your Mother" — were on TV, but his other work is just as important. Harris is in the big camp of sitcom actors who've played Marvel characters, and he's also a celebrated Broadway performer and show host. Harris has won multiple Emmy awards, and in 2014 he won best performance by an actor in a leading Role in a musical at the Tonys for his work in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch."

Looking over Harris' achievements, it would be easy to think that nothing has ever gone wrong for him. That's far from the truth. Harris' career has had its setbacks, and his personal life is as full of tragedy as anyone else. Taking a look at the most tragic details about Harris can help us appreciate the energy he brings to his work even more.

Neil Patrick Harris started acting as a child, and he landed his first film role when he was 13 years old. Shortly after writing a screenplay that asked for a talented teenage actor, playwright Mark Medoff met Harris at a summer camp in New Mexico. Harris earned the chance to star in a movie alongside Whoopi Goldberg, and though the experience was a dream come true, it also brought Harris new anxieties. "I was, I think, very worried that I would never get to act again," Harris told The Telegraph in a 2017 interview.

Of course, Harris didn't need to be overly concerned. "Clara's Heart" gave Harris' career a massive kickstart, and the year after the movie debuted, Harris made his first appearance as the titular doc at the heart of "Doogie Howser, M.D." The TV role was perfect for Harris as an actor, but stardom made his teenage years tense. "I didn't have 100 percent anonymity when I walked around in those years where I felt most awkward — through puberty, in my late teens where I had big ears and acne and an Adam's apple," Harris told NPR in 2016. He added, "Maybe [I was] overly aware and conscientious of how I was carrying myself." Being in the public eye made Harris extra self-conscious at an age when all of us struggle with self-confidence.

Neil Patrick Harris has been acting for more than three decades, and he's made quite a few friends in the industry. There are plenty of celebrities that love Harris, but not everyone in Hollywood is a fan. Harris has had some unpleasant experiences on set that left him at odds with other actors, and Harris famously feuded with "Saved by the Bell" star Dustin Diamond.

Harris and Diamond first worked together when they were kids. They were both in 1988's "Purple People Eater," but that isn't where their animosity began. Fans learned that Harris and Diamond didn't get along in 2009, when Diamond published his memoir, "Behind the Bell." Diamond didn't just express his ire for Harris in the book, he also accused Harris of having an affair with Diamond's "Saved by the Bell" costar, Ed Alonzo.

Fans got to see Harris' perspective in 2014 when the actor released his own memoir, titled "Choose Your Own Autobiography." In his book, Harris claimed that Diamond purposefully tries to upset most of his coworkers. Harris also forcefully pushed back against the affair rumor that Diamond started. "It's a completely false story that propagates a vicious lie to the grand total of twenty-three people who buy his book, presumably ironically," he wrote (via Vulture). This isn't Harris' only celebrity feud – he and Mayim Bialik had a public falling out – but Diamond's attempt to get under Harris' skin was particularly galling.

"Doogie Howser, M.D." kicked off in 1989 and followed the misadventures of the titular teenaged doctor. Doogie is one of the most memorable doctors in TV history, and the show gave Neil Patrick Harris his first big break. Years later, he still credits it with teaching him about acting and the entertainment industry as a whole. Harris played Doogie at the very beginning of his career, but the character has been following him ever since. "It's a little bizarre that people — what is it, 30 years later? — still refer to me as that," Harris once told The Guardian. "People say, 'Hey, Doogie, I like your new show!' But hey, better than anonymity, I suppose."

People still think fondly of Harris' Doogie Howser, but they don't love "Doogie Howser, M.D." nearly as much. Some TV shows are borderline timeless – fans only skip one or two episodes when they rewatch "Friends," for example. Others haven't fared nearly as well.

For years, people have been turning to the internet to express their dismay after rewatching old "Doogie" episodes. Some think the writing is a mess, and others have been shocked by some of the content in the episodes. Other fans point out the time "Doogie" promoted fatphobia, and many have been horrified to remember that, in the pilot episode, an adult woman propositions the 16-year-old Doogie for sex. Luckily for Harris' fans, he's been in plenty of other shows and movies that haven't aged quite as badly.

Neil Patrick Harris landed what is arguably his most iconic role in the mid-2000s when he started playing the scheming womanizer Barney Stinson from "How I Met Your Mother." The next year, he surprised his fans by coming out as gay. In November 2006, Harris told People, "I am happy to dispel any rumors or misconceptions and am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest and feel most fortunate to be working with wonderful people in the business I love." At that point Harris was comfortable with his own identity and he was two years into a relationship with his future husband David Burtka. Harris was proud to come out, but he didn't necessarily make the public announcement because he wanted to.

In a 2014 interview with Fresh Air on NPR, Harris explained the various social pressures that pushed him into the decision. Harris' growing fame was one factor and so was the emergence of social media. "Unfortunately, we live in a society now that's very socially savvy. There's Twitter and Facebook and camera phones and selfies," Harris said, adding, "I knew that [coming out] would be an inevitability sometime." It's good that Harris got to come out on his own terms rather than having the paparazzi or a random internet user break the news, but it remains tragic that he felt like he needed to hurry up to beat them to the punch.

Neil Patrick Harris likely knew that coming out publicly would get some big reactions. Harris made his announcement in 2006, long before gay marriage was legalized in the United States. The culture of the time added some pressure to Harris' story, but so did his career. Harris was already an established actor, but he was also just starting out on "How I Met Your Mother."

Harris had to carefully consider when he would come out and how he would do it. For all of the thought that Harris put into the statement that he gave to People, he never imagined what part would cause the most upset. "People were bothered by that use of the word 'normal,'" Harris said in an interview with The Guardian. "I think one of the most exciting parts about queer culture is being able to live your most fabulous life," he explained, adding that even though he loves the extreme, his happy place is fairly mundane and ordinary. Harris really was being his authentic self in his coming out statement, but there were always going to be some people who didn't like what he had to say for reasons of their own.

Not every actor has the skills to be a great host, but Neil Patrick Harris certainly does. He's had some successful gigs hosting the Tonys and the Emmys, and once he even hosted his own original variety show called "Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris." Unfortunately, for all the great hosting jobs Harris has worked, one of his biggest fell flat.

In 2015 Harris hosted the Oscars, and he went into the show with a strategy in mind. "I try to make my comedy on award shows a little groan-y, because I think the host is there to make everyone feel comfortable," Harris told The Telegraph a year after the show. Harris' groaners didn't go over well at all. His jokes sometimes had elaborate setups that didn't pay off, and others took the form of industry criticisms that came off as insincere.

Harris wasn't getting great reactions from the crowd during the show, but he didn't realize how bad the set was going until he read the reactions online the next morning. "The next morning [I felt] like, 'I guess that was a swing and a miss,'" Harris said in the interview, adding, "I was bummed for about a week. But you live and you learn." He wasn't going to let the bad reactions keep him down, even if they would likely keep him from coming back for another turn at being an Oscars host.

In 2024, Neil Patrick Harris was writing a weekly newsletter called "Wondercade," where he kept his fans up-to-date on some of the things happening in his professional and personal life. On July 16, Harris wrote about a tragedy that devastated his entire family. Their golden retriever died in an accident that no one could have seen coming.

The Harris family had four dogs: the golden retriever, Ella, the terrier mix, Gidget, the chihuahua-French bulldog mix, Spike, and a French bulldog, Chunk. In "Wondercade" Harris let his fans know that 4-year-old Ella had died after her collar got stuck on a broken tree branch outside, causing her to choke. The death was particularly disturbing because it happened in the same back yard where all the other dogs regularly roamed happily. "Sometimes things just happen. And I guess the work now is to process it as authentically and effectively as possible," Harris wrote in his newsletter (via Daily Mail). Even at such a low moment, Harris found himself thinking about how to best take care of his family. He wrote, "The best I can do is just feel, ideally without judgment, and then let those feelings pass. And to try and model grief in an effective way for my family."

In 2019 Neil Patrick Harris' fans were shocked to see him make an Instagram post from a hospital bed. Harris was actually making the post to share a bit of good news, but before he could tell his fans about his positive recovery, he had to explain the strange injury he'd received. Harris explained that, months earlier, he had been climbing some rocks along the coast in California when he tripped and fell directly into a spiky sea urchin.

"Most of the tiny spines I dug out myself, but two refused to leave and one got infected," Harris wrote in his post. The infection became severe, and Harris attached an ultrasound video to his post so fans could see how bad his sea urchin injury really was. Harris' surgery went well, though it did leave him with a cast to keep his injured arm elevated for a while after the operation. "All in all, though, I have to say: uni is still delicious," Harris said, referring to a dish made from sea urchins. As far as revenge goes, eating your enemy seems pretty effective.

Believe it or not, many of us share something with Neil Patrick Harris, regardless of our age, career, or location. Unfortunately, that shared detail is COVID-19. Much of the world was forced to experience the pandemic together, and that means Harris and his family were struggling with masks and social distancing just like the rest of us. And, like so many of us, Harris and his family eventually contracted the virus.

The Harris family got sick very early into the pandemic. Harris told ABC News that in late March he'd started feeling ill, but for a while he thought he might just have the flu. "I didn't want to be paranoid about it. And then I lost my sense of taste and smell, which was a big indicator, so we holed up," Harris said. Everyone in the home eventually got sick, and Harris said that the experience was unpleasant. Once he'd started to recover from COVID, Harris said he had a new appreciation for just how dangerous the virus could be. After that, he said, "We want to make sure everyone's doing their best to slow this down every way possible, for sure."

Neil Patrick Harris has made some tasteless jokes in his career, but there is one in particular that has followed him for more than a decade. In 2011 Harris and his husband hosted a party at their house, and one picture posted online by a guest caused a stir. The image showed a meat platter that had been designed to look like the corpse of Amy Winehouse. That "joke" platter would have been offensive in any context, but the fact that Winehouse had died only months earlier made it even more upsetting.

The post containing the picture was taken down and that could have been the end of a minor controversy. Unfortunately for Harris, the internet has a long memory. Writer Ashley Reese made a post on Twitter (now called X) in 2022, remarking that she couldn't believe how many people were unaware of the Winehouse meat platter incident. Her post went viral, and Harris was facing fresh backlash for a tasteless joke that was 10 years old. The viral tweet prompted Harris to attempt to address the issue. "Amy Winehouse was a once-in-a-generation talent, and I'm sorry for any hurt this image caused," he said in a statement given to Entertainment Weekly.

"Doogie Howser, M.D." isn't the only Neil Patrick Harris TV series that has made fans cringe on a rewatch. "Doogie" took 30 years to age out of acceptability, but "How I Met Your Mother" started making fans question their love for the show pretty quickly. "HIMYM" has the same flaws as many other sitcoms, and some fans have taken issue with Harris' character, Barney Stinson. Barney will do anything to get a woman into bed, and though it is always played for laughs in the show, some of his behavior is unavoidably messed up. In online fan discussions, it doesn't take long for someone to point out that Barney is undeniably hilarious — and functionally evil.

Harris is aware of the criticism, and he doesn't take it personally. "Some people will be offended by it ... and there's not much one can do in retrospect," Harris told The Guardian. He explained that he believes that most of Barney's outrageous exploits are fictionalized stories told by the show's narrator Ted. That may or may not excuse Barney's misogynistic and sometimes criminal behavior, but Harris added that when they were making the show, "There was never a sense of doing things with bad intent."