Rain Phoenix, the sister of the teen icon and acclaimed actor River Phoenix, has opened up about how his passing has affected her outlook on death. The “Stand by Me” and “My Own Private Idaho” star died in 1993 at the age of 23 from a drug overdose in the infamous nightclub The Viper Room – which was owned by Johnny Depp at the time. Rain is a musician and actor who has previously discussed the difficulty in coping with her brother’s passing and the intense media scrutiny but this honest account details how it has changed her perspective of death.
Rain Phoenix Talks About Her Brother’s Death
Writing on Another Jane Pratt Thing in a guest post, Rain spoke about the experience of River’s death and how it has affected her in life. “When I was 20, my brother River died,” she writes.
“The experience of losing him was unimaginably painful and traumatic. Further compounded by the intense media coverage around his tragic death which felt invasive and cruel.”
Rain then revealed how she struggled to come to terms with what had happened. She continued, “I couldn’t process it. I had to shut it out. The only thing I felt I could do at the time to protect myself, was to keep his life and his memory safe.”
However, Rain later came to realize that by taking this approach, she had effectively stopped herself from being able to look back and enjoy the time she spent with her brother as well as the rest of her family like Joaquin Phoenix. “It wasn’t until 25 years later, while making my first solo record that I realized, my protective response had also somehow kept him from me,” she wrote. “We had always made music together. And the only way to truly move forward and find my own voice was to acknowledge and honor his.”
She Now Has A New Relationship With Death
Later in the same post, Rain details how this realization opened up a new relationship with death and a different perspective on what it means to die. She wrote, “Once I made that connection, and intentionally included him, something inexplicably changed for the better.”
“Now 32 years and many losses later, a deepening curiosity about death, grief and how we as a society process it, has come alive for me. I want to be aware of it. Maybe it will lead me to be more present in life.”j
According to Rain, she is now less anxious about death and has worked to make it something that is less scary. “Like the red car theory, the more I’ve become aware of life’s bookend, the more I find myself increasingly in proximate situations of loss”, she explains. “That might just be age but, whatever the reason, I’m ok with it. Death happens to everyone. There is no hierarchy in death. There are apparently ways to better prepare for it though, to make peace with it while we’re alive.”
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