The highly esteemed comedian, best known for her fabulously funny work on Saturday Night Live, has opened up to share a tragic incident from her past with her adoring fans. Shockingly, it's this very tragedy that inspired her to pursue a career that put the focus on making people laugh.
Molly tells fans that when she was just four years old, her father drove drunk, and after a horrifying crash, his actions resulted in the death of her sister, her mother, and her cousin. Her father survived, but suffered severe, life-altering injuries.
This traumatic experience shook Molly to her core, and altered everything about her life. Her coping mechanism, sarcastic humor, soon became the very thing that led to her successful career as a world-renowned comedian.
Fans are stunned and are struggling to absorb this socking revelation.
Molly Shannon's Severe Trauma
Molly Shannon's childhood was marred by the trauma of knowing her father's poor decision to drive drunk was the very reason that her life was crumbling around her. The star opened up to the press to reveal that she was only four years old when she was informed of this tragedy that was unfolding around her, and life, as she knew it, was suddenly and abruptly changed.
The course of her happy life would never be the same, and as she struggled to cope with her new life without the tenderness of her mother's love and her sister there beside her, Molly began to find solace in expressing emotions through comedic gestures and sarcastic actions.
Eventually, this led to her pursuit of a career in comedy, and what most would embrace as a huge rise to international fame.
Twitter Responds
Fans took to Twitter to express their complete and utter dismay at the tragic childhood trauma Molly was forced to endure.
Stunned fans were horrified by this update, and expressed their feelings online with comments such as; "wow I had no idea she was in such a bad crash," "oh wow, funny people seem to always rise from hard times and pain," and "oh wow she deserves so much praise for rising above this."
Others commented by saying, "I had no idea she has been through so much, that's a hard survival story," and "she deserves so much in life after living through that nightmare."
One person wrote; "this is a horrible reality check. It's amazing that she can rise above this pain but it surely never goes away. There's a lesson here, she's lucky her life turned out so well, this story could have ended differently."