Cattrall said she’s “done a lot of work where I don’t want to assume that I can fix people”
Kim Cattrall is opening up about the loss of her brother.
The Sex and the City star discussed her grief over her brother Christopher’s death by suicide in 2018, calling it “out of the natural order.”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Cattrall, 66, told The Sunday Times. “It was sudden and unexpected.”
“You remember where you were, what happened, what was said. It is all so accessible, all the time, a weight that is always with you and never leaves,” she continued.
Cattrall had asked the public for help in 2018 to help locate her brother who had gone missing, until police found his body five days later. Cattrall admitted to the outlet that those five days felt heightened.
“That was just an extraordinary few days,” she recalled. “Everything in you is on high alert because he can be saved. And in my family that was one of the roles you take on.”
However, the loss also taught her an important lesson about her boundaries and burdens.
“I’m the one that went into the world. So it was my role. But I am slowly retiring from that,” Cattrall said. “I’ve done a lot of work where I don’t want to assume that I can fix people. They have to want to fix themselves, and me caring, living and fretting about them doesn’t solve it. They have to want to change.”
Discussing her brother’s alcoholism, Catrall said it was ultimately a friend of hers that was the one who eventually helped her gain “clarity” on the situation.
“A friend of mine, who’s a big advocate of AA, which my brother never went to, said alcohol is a mistress that gets you alone and then kills you,” she recalled. “It was startling to hear that with such a bare-bones clarity.”
“I’m just glad my father wasn’t alive to experience it. As tough as he was, I don’t think he could have taken it,” she added.
Cattrall paid tribute to her brother last year by posting a throwback photo of the two of them and advocating for suicide prevention.
“Today would have been my baby brother Chris’s 59th b’day. Happy Birthday, sweet ‘Topher,'” she wrote. “We miss you today and everyday. RIPx #SuicidePrevention”
Cattrall previously opened up about her brother’s death in 2019, explaining that loss has taught her to appreciate her relationships, saying, “I think recently the thing that has taught me the most is loss.”
She noted, “I’ve lost two family members and I think what it teaches me, I’m not there yet, but to really enjoy what you do, your family, your friends, to really appreciate … when I say goodbye to somebody I’m not going to see for awhile.”