The 66-year-old actor opened up about the “sudden and unexpected” loss of her brother in an interview with The Sunday Times published on June 4.
During her talk with the British publication, Cattrall spoke about being close with her two sisters, who currently live in Canada, before reflecting on the losses her family has experienced over the last decade.
View this post on Instagram
Cattrall announced on Instagram in December 2022 that her mother, Shane Cattrall, had died. In February 2018, she posted on Twitter about her brother’s death and in February 2012 she tweeted that her father, Dennis Cattrall, died.
She explained to The Sunday Times how she handled the untimely death of Chris Cattrall differently. “With my mum, she was 93 and it was a slow decline,” she said. “But my brother, this was out of the natural order. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Cattrall continued, “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.”
Before his death was confirmed, Chris Cattrall was missing for five days after leaving his home in Alberta, Canada. At the time, the “How I Met Your Father” star uploaded his photo to her social media accounts and asked her fans to help track him down.
She described the amount of time police spent searching for her brother as an “extraordinary few days.”
“Everything in you is on high alert because he can be saved,” she recalled to the British outlet. Cattrall shared that it was her “role” in her family to be the one who rescued everyone else.
Since his passing, she has tried to leave that mentality behind. “I am slowly retiring from that. I’ve done a lot of work where I don’t want to assume that I can fix people,” she said.
She added, “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.”
But, she initially took responsibility for her brother’s personal struggles, she said. Chris Cattrall had been an alcoholic, according to the publication, and the “Mannequin” star said she used to have “magical thinking” that she could’ve taken his pain away.
She gained “clarity” after a friend described alcoholism in a way that helped her process the tragic situation. “‘Alcohol is a mistress that gets you alone and then kills you,’” her friend explained. “And that’s exactly what happened.”
She also expressed relief that her father did not have to see his son suffer. “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 said.
Last year, the “Sex and the City” star paid tribute to her brother on what would’ve been his 59th birthday. In January 2022, she uploaded a throwback photo to Instagram of the two siblings leaning on each other.
“Happy Birthday, sweet ‘Topher,’” she captioned the picture. “We miss you today and every day. RIPx.” At the end of her post, she added the hashtag “suicide prevention.”