The Carpenters: Only Yesterday Part 5

Angels and Demons

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• The
• Carpenters
• Karen
• Richard
• Carpenter
• Grammys
• Documentary
• Recording
• Duo
• A&M
• Drums
• Drummer
• Downey
• New
• Haven
• Music

[ThePolkadotbikini]

that anorexia is a bitch. she looks forty damn years old!!!

[roscoegino]

@ThePolkadotbikini Yeah. The severe weight loss made her look older not just because she hadn't been eating but because she'd been replacing vital nutrients with laxatives and other over the counter crap. It's a shame. I don't think she got a chance to discover Karen the person.

[choirlady1976]

She was so incredibly thin, why they didn't get her off the stage and into treatment sooner... she went into treatment too late..

[roscoegino]

@choirlady1976 to their defense they couldn't make heads or tails of what she was going through. Few people knew what aneroxia was and so they just told Karen to keep eating, keep eating. On the other hand, if I was Richard, I would not have recorded with Karen until she got well.

[FaerieCrone]

I think that the mother kind of pushed Karen away. She favoured Richard, and karen needed reassurance and praise and never got it from her mother.

[jposh707]

It seems like she went from looking really young to prematurely old overnight. There wasn't much of an "in-between" phase... It seemed like it happened when she was about 25, which I guess is shortly after she started the intense dieting..

[BellaSilvery]

If Karen is still living we could hear more and more new songs from the Carpenters

[LAWoman323213]

@FaerieCrone Agnes Carpenter was a controlling a-hole, who always idolized Richard while making Karen feel like a second class citizen.

[psychedelics12345]

If Karen would have lived I think she would have been on Dancing With The Stars. 

[Purple1984Rain]

Jesus! She's suppose to be 26 years old in this spceial and she looks about 50. It's heartbreaking watching this musical giant slowly dying before our eyes

[ADenny12]

Seems to me that KC was just very good at whatever she set her mind to. She was a perfectionist. She applied this to singing, prob. to her drumming, to their stage shows & also to becoming thin. Sometimes folks focus on the outcomes & forget that it's the same behavior (e.g., exceling) that drives diff. activities. When she exceled in singing, no prob. When she exceled at thinness, obviously a prob. The important question for me is why 'thin' was such a goal for her.

[AMEDINANA]

These parents are really great!! In contrast, I can't stand the awful parents who abuse their families and use the word "love" to justify their degenerate actions. If more parents were as supportive as they were in their children's talents as the Carpenters, then we would have a smarter population overall. Karen & Richard were both adults when they developed their then unknown addictions & both tried to get help. Richard as we know succeeded and Karen helped us learn about eating disorders.

[sraphael]

Damn, I think Karen's solo album sounded great! I think its worth taking notice that Karen became drastically thinner and thinner and sicker and sicker from about 1980 onwards- and that was about the time her solo album was rejected. I don't believe the decision to not release the album was all Karen's idea at all. I really do think had Richard supported his sister, it would have happened and it might have liberated Karen a bit, to let her feel like she's accomplished something on her own.