Gary Coleman’s Sudden Tragic Death Haunts His Friends Years Later: “Too Many Questions With No Answers”

Gary, Peacock‘s new documentary about the late Diff’rent Strokes star Gary Coleman, features insights from some of the people who were closest to the child actor — and not all of them think his death at age 42 in 2010 should be a closed case.

Coleman died in Provo, Utah after falling at home and suffering bleeding in his brain. He died shortly after being taken off life support at the hospital, where his wife Shannon Price claimed doctors said he had no chance of survival. Those closest to Coleman, however, question Price’s story and motives in Gary.

Coleman’s friend Anna Gray says that Price and Coleman first met after he moved out to Utah to film the movie Church Ball in 2005. Gray recalls that within the first day of her meeting Price, she “was already picking up on [Price] wanting things, not wanting [Coleman]. Wanting things.

“I was really hoping that it would be another person in his life that would lift him up and bring him joy, and that’s not what happened at the end,” she adds.

The relationship was fraught, Price herself admits. She details arguments the two would have over money, and even confesses, “I slapped him a couple times … people smack each other, they hit each other. People do it. If you deny it, you’re crazy.” The couple eventually divorced in 2008, but got back together and Price moved back into their shared home. Coleman’s Utah lawyer Randy Kester alleges in the doc that he and the late actor discussed a restraining order against Price “multiple times” after they got back together, but Coleman never went through with the filing.

Meanwhile, his friend Brandi Buys raises similar allegations about Price and Coleman’s relationship, saying police visited their home “quite a few times” and that the relationship was “just toxic.” But, she notes, both Coleman and Price allegedly abused each other: “They both laid their hands on each other. Neither one of them was the innocent party,” she says.

The day of Coleman’s fatal fall, Price claims she heard a “big loud boom” coming from downstairs in the house and called for Coleman, but did not get a reply. When she went down to investigate, she found Coleman “laying down on the floor with blood around his head.”

She then called 911, a portion of which Gary shares with viewers. In the call, Price says, “I just can’t be here with the blood.” Buys, a friend of Coleman’s, says she heard the 911 audio and was “appalled” when Price claimed she couldn’t help because of the blood around Coleman’s body. “If you care about somebody, you don’t care about that,” Buys says.

Gray agrees, saying Price was “more worried about herself than the person she was calling 911 for.” She then adds, “I have a lot of questions and concerns about what happened in the house that day” — a sentiment many of Coleman’s close friends seem to share. Yet, Price insists she was “freaked out” by the blood that day and didn’t want to “intervene” since she “knew help was coming.”

Dion Mial, a close friend of Coleman’s who is featured often in the doc, notes that Price did not accompany Coleman to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with an intracranial hemorrhage. Doctors had been bringing Coleman into dialysis when he went into cardiac arrest, Price — who insists she wasn’t in the right state of mind to go to the hospital with Coleman — says. When Coleman was placed on a ventilator, Price claims she was told by doctors and nurses that he was “not going to make it,” and they suggested she take him off life support.

Mial says he was “stumped” by the circumstances of Coleman’s death “because there were way too many questions with no answers.” He notes, “He was four feet, eight inches tall. He didn’t have that far to fall in order to create such a significant injury. It just begs question after question after question.”

Buys echoes something similar, but is careful with her language when she says, “I personally in my opinion do not think that he fell. I want to say so much but I don’t — I don’t know what I can say without being sued.”

As for Price, she’s adamant that she “didn’t do anything,” insisting, “I didn’t touch him, I didn’t hurt him. I was nowhere near him. Nothing happened.”

Coleman’s friends are especially incensed by how Price handled the late star’s advanced healthcare directive, which included a clause stating that he wanted two weeks of care before being taken off of life support. Price pulled the plug at the hospital after two days, and says that Coleman’s directive clarified that if two or more doctors said he wouldn’t “come out of it,” then he could be taken off life support.

“There were enough doctors and medical staff that told me … he just wasn’t gonna get better,” she says.

Mial, horrified, wonders to himself, “Did you not want to give him some time? Why did you feel the need to do that so quickly? I mean, you never gave him a chance.”

While Mial is clearly still emotional about his friend’s passing, he ends the doc on a hopeful note.

“His life is definitely a cautionary tale, but I choose to acknowledge his life in a complete whole perspective for everything that it was: the tragic moments as well as his victory and his triumphs,” Mial says.

Gary is now streaming on Peacock.