Tragic Details About The Cast Of The Big Bang Theory

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"The Big Bang Theory" might be one of TV's most beloved comedies, but there are some seriously tragic details about the core cast. So what hardships did they endure while they were working on Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady's nerd-centric sitcom for twelve years and the same number of seasons? 

According to Jessica Radloff's 2022 book "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," core cast members Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik, Melissa Rauch, and Kevin Sussman — who respectively play Sheldon Cooper, Leonard Hofstadter, Penny, Howard Wolowitz, Raj Koothrappali, Amy Farrah Fowler, Bernadette Rostenkowski, and Stuart Bloom — went through some difficult things during the show's storied run. From showmances gone wrong to serious injuries to a truly devastating and personal loss for one of the show's actors, here are just a few tragic details about the cast of "The Big Bang Theory."

In September 2010, the cast of "The Big Bang Theory" was hard at work on the show's fourth season when a sudden tragedy struck — specifically, an accident experienced by Kaley Cuoco while she was horseback riding. Cuoco has been an equestrian for most of her life and was riding at a ranch outside of Los Angeles when the horse she was riding got scared and threw her off. To add literal insult to injury, as the horse tried to get away, it landed on Cuoco's left leg and nearly crushed it entirely. Cuoco was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital, and when showrunner Chuck Lorre heard, he sprang into action.

"That was the darkest, most frightening time in all twelve years," Lorre recalled in the book. "Kaley could have lost her leg. It was a series of miracles that allowed us to get through that and for her to come out the other end of that healthy." Lorre got the news about his star on the golf course and, while there, he ran into an orthopedics expert he knew named Dr. Stephen Lombardo. The good doctor stepped in, got Cuoco transferred to the famous Cedars-Sinai Hospital, and ensured that she got to keep her leg. (It was, apparently, that serious.) Cuoco told Jessica Radloff that she was asked to sign something before surgery agreeing to a potential amputation, but thankfully, that didn't happen. So how did she get back to work without giving Penny an in-universe injury? The show simply put Penny behind objects so nobody would see Cuoco's boot.

Showmances happen pretty often on TV and film sets, so it's probably not all that surprising that Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki struck up a real-life relationship as their characters, Penny and Leonard, embarked on their own love story. Despite keeping it secret for a while, they eventually told Chuck Lorre, who was surprised but supportive ... and yet, as Jessica Radloff details in her book, the two parted ways after almost two years of dating (around 2010).

Even though Galecki and Cuoco make it abundantly clear in the book that they split simply because they were just very different people and that there weren't any hard feelings, they did have a slightly tricky time performing through one of Penny and Leonard's many on-screen breakups. As co-creator Bill Prady recalled, "I remember being worried because we were on a trajectory towards a Leonard and Penny breakup, and being concerned that I didn't want to hurt somebody who had been through that recently. But they were amazing."

Lorre's daughter Nikki, who also worked on the series, noted, "It was obviously very hard when it ended for them, but I was just amazed by how professional they always were, and even though it was hard and raw at times, there was always a love for each other." Thankfully, the two were able to move past the breakup and play out Penny and Leonard's love story in full.

Throughout her time on "The Big Bang Theory," Melissa Rauch's Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz and her husband, Howard Wolowitz, have two kids ... but in real life, Rauch, a mother herself, suffered something deeply tragic while Bernadette was "pregnant" for the first time. In an essay in Glamour about the experience, Rauch wrote: 

"The miscarriage I experienced was one of the most profound sorrows I have ever felt in my life. It kick-started a primal depression that lingered in me. The image of our baby on the ultrasound monitor—without movement, without a heartbeat—after we had seen that same little heart healthy and flickering just two weeks prior completely blindsided us and haunts me to this day. I kept waiting for the sadness to lift ... but it didn't. Sure, I had happy moments, and life went on, but the heartbreak was always lurking."

Thankfully, Rauch had happy news to report in the same article: she and her husband were expecting their first baby, who was then born that same year — and she welcomed a second child in 2020. In Jessica Radloff's book, Rauch and some of the show's producers discussed the decision to work her real pregnancy into the show ... and it ended up becoming a genuinely special storyline.

In August 2018, news broke that the forthcoming 12th season of "The Big Bang Theory" would be its last ... and rumors swirled that it was only because Jim Parsons wanted to leave. So why did he choose to exit? Put simply, he wanted to try something new and was also grieving a personal loss.

"I had this moment of clarity that I think you're very fortunate to get in a lot of ways, of going 'Don't keep speeding by.' You know? 'Use this time to take a look around,'" Parsons told former "Doctor Who" star David Tennant on Tennant's podcast in August 2020. According to Parsons, he also told Chuck Lorre and executive producer Steve Molaro that he made the decision, in part, to honor the memory of his late father: "'If you told me that like my father, I had six years left to live, I think there's other things I need to try and do.'"

In Jessica Radloff's book, Parsons reiterated this, saying that his and his husband Todd Spiewak's dog Otis' passing in 2018 was another factor. After noting that Ptis was an "emblem" of Parsons' life with Spiewak, he said, "It was the end of an era, and his passing brought a sense of clarity for me. I don't think there was a part of me that actually thought I would do more seasons after the twelfth, but I was ready to go ... get out of the security of the show to fully find out what was next for me."

A running gag throughout "The Big Bang Theory" is Howard Wolowitz's unseen but extremely loud mother, Mrs. Wolowitz, voiced by veteran actress Carol Ann Susi. When Susu died in 2014, the cast and crew of the series was hit hard. As writer and executive producer Steve Molaro told Jessica Radloff, "As far as significant moments go over the twelve years, losing Carol Ann was so tough. That was such a big blow because she was truly part of our family."

As Howard's on-screen wife Melissa Rauch remembered, the whole gang went to Susi's public memorial ... and then had one together. "For the one on set, we all gathered on the stage and told our favorite Carol Ann stories through our tears," she recalled, revealing that she remained a part of the show forever. "And Johnny and Molaro put up the little picture of her on the refrigerator in Sheldon and Leonard's apartment, which remained until the very end of the series."

From there, the show needed to write in Mrs. Wolowitz's death as well ... which was incredibly hard. "She was such a beloved part of the family, it was heartbreaking," Molaro said. "We knew we had to honor her with the passing of Howard's mom. I think it was emotionally cathartic for us to be able to do that because the sadness of the characters on-screen certainly reflected what we were feeling behind the scenes."

We already talked about how Jim Parsons' decision to leave Sheldon Cooper behind effectively brought "The Big Bang Theory" to an end, but apparently, telling the rest of the cast — who had no idea about Parsons' choice — was truly traumatic. As Chuck Lorre told Jessica Radloff, he gathered the cast together and asked Parsons to make the reveal, but he also made some remarks.

"I said I didn't see a path forward without Sheldon, and frankly I didn't want to see a path forward with anybody leaving the show. I said, 'Let's go out on top as the wonderful show that we've been blessed to do for twelve years,'" Lorre recalled. "But there was a lot of crying in the room. Kaley, in particular. It was a blow. And there was no way to soften it by giving them a heads-up. I didn't know any other way to do it."

Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki, in particular, were left absolutely reeling. "The shock of Oh my God, what is next? was scary. I mean, we cried for hours that day," Cuoco recalled. "We thought we were going to do another year, so all of [a] sudden your life kind of flashes before your eyes. I looked at Chuck and said, 'What are we going to do?' I couldn't breathe. It just felt like a death, but also a new horizon for everybody as well." Galecki agreed: "I was shocked. We were just blindsided that day." It's understandable, but thankfully, they all still had one season remaining to close out their stories ... and keep working together.

In 2007, the Writers Guild of America went on strike ... and brought "The Big Bang Theory" to a halt after just eight episodes. "We were shut down for one hundred days," Chuck Lorre said of this stressful time. "No one knew what was going to happen. No one knew if we were going to get canceled."

Kunal Nayyar, for his part, told Jessica Radloff that he traded in his beat-up Nissan Altima for a nicer car ... only to fret about his finances after buying a new Audi as the show went on strike. As for Johnny Galecki, he fled across the country, moving back to New York City with his then-girlfriend. "I'd even cry sometimes, telling my girlfriend, 'They took my show away,'" Galecki remembered. "One hundred days felt like such a long time. I don't think I ever gained a true gratefulness for being on the show until the writers' strike."

To complicate matters, Bill Prady and Steve Molaro, among others, were strike captains, although Prady said that having something to do in the show's absence was welcome. "One of the silver linings was that as a strike captain, it kept me from sitting at home," he said. "If I sat home during that, I don't know if I would have been able to cope with the emotion of the show shutting down." Then, something miraculous happened: the show started to thrive as CBS aired its only available episodes on repeat in place of new programming, and it returned in full force for its second season.

After the strike ended and "The Big Bang Theory" became an unqualified success, its stars became household names ... and as Simon Helberg told Jessica Radloff in the book, he found it really hard to skyrocket to fame basically overnight. In particular, he said his own anxieties really took the steering wheel as he got more and more famous.

"I really had to learn how to deal with a lot of that stuff, and that's all happening at the same time as you're becoming famous, which is weird," he shared. "Your life is changing, your lifestyle is changing, and believe it or not, fame is not the healthiest. It doesn't tend to make the issues that you have lessen." So how did he deal with it?

"But the fetal position does wonders. And just wailing and pounding on the floor, also, is a great way to let out some of that emotional baggage," Helberg joked before getting serious, citing "therapy, and friends, and family." He also was quick to say he's incredibly grateful for the notoriety, all things considered. "And it's not that the success is a burden — because it's truly a fortunate thing that I feel incredibly grateful for' it's that whatever you're bringing to the party is ultimately distilled and then explodes into something tenfold the side of what it was," he concluded. "It's not really a coincidence that you see people have a challenging time dealing with that."

At this point, it's impossible to imagine anybody but Kunal Nayyar as the nebbish, lovable, and hopelessly romantic astrophysicist Raj Koothrappalli ... but thanks to interference from CBS executives, he almost lost the part after working on the pilot. As Nayyar told Jessica Radloff, he heard the show got picked up through Deadline and then found out that the network flew out the rest of the cast to New York City for upfront presentations. As Chuck Lorre found out shortly after, it's because executives wanted to replace Nayyar.

"Apparently while I was flying across the country, a CBS executive determined — unilaterally — that Kunal wasn't right for the role and we would recast that part," Lorre told Radloff. "Well, I did not respond well. I was furious. They made this decision without consulting me." Lorre says that he called up these executives and made it quite clear that he wanted Nayyar in the role and that he'd accept the consequences if the pilot failed because of it. "If I'm going to fail, I'm going to fail on my own choices. I'm not going to fail on someone else's choices. I wasn't about to recast that part because someone else made a decision," Lorre said. This gambit on Lorre's part completely worked; he refused to cede any ground on the Nayyar issue, and ultimately, Nayyar kept the role ... and the character of Raj became a beloved series staple.

In 2011, Johnny Galecki got news that he earned an Emmy nomination for playing Leonard Hofstadter ... and then woke up one morning at his sister's house to find his face drooping. "I thought I had had a mini stroke. My sister burst into tears, and as we were on our way to the hospital, I called Chuck [Lorre] and told him I was paralyzed on my right side," Galecki remembered. "I said, 'I'm going to help you recast my role, and I would love if you would also consider me for a staff writing position on the show.'"

Thankfully, Lorre is, again, a man of action. "And of course Chuck calls all the best doctors in the world and looks into things and says, "It sounds like you have Bell's palsy.' But I was really thinking my acting career was done," Galecki said — and, as we all know, it wasn't. "And later at the hospital after running tests, they confirmed it was Bell's palsy. So, when the Emmy [nominations] came out, I hadn't told my team I had Bell's palsy, but now I had to." Thanks to some creative camera angles and a bandana Galecki carried around — to wipe tears for the eye that temporarily couldn't blink — he was able to recover in relative peace and quiet and keep playing Leonard.

Three different main performers got divorced during the run of "The Big Bang Theory," and when this happened to Kaley Cuoco as her divorce from Ryan Sweeting was set to be announced in the fall of 2015, she was actually on set and ready to do an interview with Entertainment Tonight. Still, because she was shooting a particularly funny scene from Season 4, she said, "It just took me totally out of what was going on in my personal life." Some of her colleagues, however? They weren't so lucky!

Mayim Bialik also got a divorce while working on "The Big Bang Theory," and naturally, it was right as her character Amy Farrah Fowler "married" Sheldon on-screen. "I got divorced during 'Big Bang Theory.' My father died during 'Big Bang Theory,'" Bialik shared. "There was a lot of emotional eating, so I wasn't the size I wanted to be in a wedding dress [...] Being a divorced woman back in a wedding dress was very, very strange."

As for Kevin Sussman, who played comic book store owner Stuart, it was just the highs and lows that got to him. "During the middle of the show's run, I was going through a divorce, and living in a little studio apartment," he recalled, noting that he'd get recognized and then go home to a tiny apartment he hated. "I was really depressed going through a divorce and then, within a span of ten minutes, feeling like I'm a celebrity to feeling like I'm a total failure and a loser inside his studio apartment. It's something I never got used to."