Dyan Cannon has been an outspoken advocate for her faith in Hollywood and recently spoke candidly about the trials and tribulations she experienced during her religious journey. In her early twenties, while trying to find herself, she met her ex-husband Cary Grant, who was 33 years her senior. Before discovering that faith held the answers to her personal struggles, she sought life’s biggest questions through Cary. She told Fox News: “We have a [podcast] episode about how we met God. Mine starts with how I met him on the Universal lot. I was about 22, and his name was Cary Grant, because that was God to me at the time. I was trying to find my way in the world.”
Dyan expressed that her curiosity led her to Cary, and she added: “I don’t think wisdom necessarily comes with age. I don’t think you have to grow old to understand life. I think wisdom comes with seeking. And I was seeking truth.” Before the duo got married, Cary convinced Dyan to try LSD, and then when there were major bumps in their marriage, Dyan took the psychedelic drug together multiple times with him out of desperately attempting to save their relationship.
She revealed to the Los Angeles Times: “He thought it was a gateway to God. He thought it was going to help him find peace. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I did it to please him and to save our marriage. But I kept saying, ‘How is this going to help me find God? How is this going to help you find God?’ He didn’t force me to take it. I said ‘Yes.'” Cary believed that using the drug helped him face his childhood traumas.
The couple ended up divorcing after three years, and Dyan then turned to pills and marijuana to try to escape the pain she felt. She transparently shared that she faced a mental breakdown which led her to “the nut house,” as she described it. She kept her troubled life a secret from her circle and noted: “I was locked up. Most of my best friends didn’t know about it.”
Looking back, Dyan would have done things differently. When Fox News inquired about what advice she would give herself during the time she had just met Cary, she laughed and replied: “Snap out of it.” She added: “We had wonderful times together. [But] had I been able to go back and live it differently, I would’ve. I’m not as patient with myself as I used to be.”
© Getty ImagesDyan has since decentered men in her life. She expressed: “It took me a long time to learn how to be happy by myself because I really thought I was incomplete without a man in my life. I was raised to think that you marry, you have children and that’s what makes a happy life. And in my case, it wasn’t.”
© Getty ImagesShe continued: “But I’ve learned how to be happy alone. There’s great freedom in that because then you don’t settle for the broken set of dishes. You’re not with somebody just because you’re lonely. You’re not with someone just because you’re afraid to be alone.” Dyan emphasized that although she’s currently “absolutely open to dating” she doesn’t see herself getting married again. Instead, she’s embracing singleness and has found the answers she’s been looking for through her faith.
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