EXCLUSIVE: Brian Wilson's Tormented Life – How Abuse, Demons and Drugs Took Unbelievable Toll on Gentle Genius
Brian Wilson's life was a saga of torment.
July 4 2025, Published 7:00 a.m. ET
Brian Wilson, who died June 11, five days before his 82nd birthday, has been widely celebrated as America's greatest modern songwriter – but the music icon's personal life was anything but harmonious, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The driving creative force behind the Beach Boys' massive success was battered by his relatives – emotionally and physically – as he helplessly suffered inside his own mind with what he later said was undiagnosed schizophrenia.
While a protective father later denied it was his idea, Wilson claimed he was forced by cousin turned bandmate Mike Love and his own brothers, Carl and Dennis Wilson, to fire the remaining members of the original lineup – which included pal Al Jardine, who'd stuck with Brian since the early days – because of conflict in the now 82-year-old's behavior.
Inner Torment
Al Jardine, left, stood by Brian Wilson for decades, even as the Beach Boys' turmoil tore the band, above, apart.
"My whole life in the Beach Boys was a big camouflage," he once said. "I was hiding from life. When you're [in that] 10-second level of mental, nervous breakdowns, you call it a '10.'"
"I was in my Play Room so much of the time, just trying to survive. But when I had enough strength, I would go into the studio to write music or go into the house to play the piano – and that would lift me out of it."
He was also tormented by audio hallucinations – "voices" he once said told him things like "get your teeth out" – and sometimes sent him into a panic.
Sources close to the music icon said Mike Love, above, and Wilson's own brothers pushed him to the edge.
"Sometimes I just felt like a voice would say something and I would listen to it," Wilson added. "If it said, 'Jump out the window,' I'd jump out the window."
He was also paranoid about space aliens and would scream to friends to get out of the way when a spaceship passed overhead. Sometimes he'd run into his house and lock the doors.
Still, Wilson eventually found the strength to fire his father, who was also the band's manager and had sold the publishing rights in 1969 for a mere $700,000.
His Rock
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Friends said Wilson’s wife Melinda, above with the icon, was his 'anchor.'
As the main writer and producer behind a string of hits, including Surfin' USA, California Girls, Little Deuce Coupe, Good Vibrations, God Only Knows and Wouldn't It Be Nice, Brian was long considered the genius behind the group's revolutionary sound.
He also composed most of the seminal Pet Sounds album, which inspired The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
But fame required a price – and after a reported two-year, one-hour-per-week treatment under the care of now-disgraced psychotherapist Eugene Landy, who diagnosed Wilson as having a schizoaffective disorder, he was left under his spell until 1991, when his wife Melinda helped regain control.
Wilson's tragic end came after being diagnosed with dementia in early 2024.
"She is everything he needed and more for the last half of her life," one friend said. "She was his anchor."
