The Beach Boys played on phones and speakers around the world when news broke that the group’s co-founder Brian Wilson had died on Wednesday (Thursday morning AEST).
Though he was best known for shaping the band’s sunny surf sound and harmonies, behind the scenes Brian’s life was full of challenges.
“I’ve lived a very, very difficult, haunted life,” he told the Washington Post in 2007.
From family violence, to personal tragedies, mental health struggles and a rogue doctor who could have ruined his career, the music legend’s rise to fame wasn’t easy and Brian faced many challenges.
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Despite it all, Brian found peace with his family in later life and credited his second wife, Melinda, with helping him overcome so much before his death.
A challenging childhood
Born in 1942, Brian was the eldest of three sons, all of whom suffered verbal and physical violence at the hands of their father Murry Wilson.
In his book I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir, co-authored with Ben Greenman, Brian confessed he was afraid of his father as a child and suffered anxiety as a result of the abuse.
“My dad was violent. He was cruel,” he wrote.
“He was rough with all of us, me and my brothers – he grabbed us by the arms and shoved us and hit us with hands that were sometimes open and sometimes even closed.”
Murry was also deeply invested in his sons’ musical talent, especially when they formed the Beach Boys with Mike Love and Al Jardine in the 1960s, and saw them as an opportunity to cash in on the rising popularity of rock ‘n roll music.
He managed the band from its formation in 1961 until 1964, when Brian distanced himself from his father after suffering the first of several mental health episodes in his life.
The band subsequently dismissed Murry as their manager but he continued to offer feedback and advice (often unsolicited) to his sons behind the scenes.
His death in 1973 also had a profound emotional impact on Brian, sparking a period of reclusiveness and substance abuse.
A childhood accident with lifelong consequences
Though many fans of the Beach Boys would never guess it from listening to the music Brian helped create, he was profoundly deaf in one ear for most of his life.
When he was about 11, another child hit Brian “in the head with a lead pipe” while they were playing in their local neighbourhood.
“The feeling was just shock at first, but the next day I realised I couldn’t hear as well out of my right ear,” he wrote in his book.
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Legends of the music world, then and now
Wilson’s mother took him to a doctor who revealed a nerve had been severed, rendering him about 95 to 98 per cent deaf in that ear.
It left Brian profoundly self-conscious and affected the way he spoke and emoted, as he started to rely more heavily on his left side.
“The ear affected me deeply for the rest of my life,” Brian wrote, but he still went on to create decade-defining music.
Mental health battles
Brian experienced his first documented breakdown in 1964 during a flight from Los Angeles to Houston, when he began crying uncontrollably.
It was the first of three emotional breakdowns in that time and there were more mental health challenged on the horizon.
In 1965, when he was in his early 20s, Brian started hearing voices which he described as “heroes and villains” in his head.
“[I] could hear voices telling me negative things about myself,” he said in a 2006 interview.
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“Even today, when I sing I have to force myself not listen to them. But when the concert is over, the voices come back.”
These were actually auditory hallucinations caused by schizoaffective disorder, though Brian wouldn’t receive an official diagnosis or mental health support for many years.
Friends and family who knew about his hallucinations encouraged Brian to see a mental health professional but he refused, instead relying on food, drugs and alcohol as a means of self-medication.
Over the years, and as Brian and the Beach Boys became more famous, more people outside his inner circle began to pick up on his unusual behaviour but he didn’t receive a proper diagnosis or support until later in life – and even then, there were issues.
He would later credit second wife Melinda for helping him navigate his mental health struggles and later manage them.
“When I’m on stage, I try to combat the voices by singing really loud,” he said.
“When I’m not on stage, I play my instruments all day, making music for people. Also, I kiss my wife and kiss my kids. I try to use love as much as possible.”
Substance abuse
Like so many music stars, Brian began experimenting with drugs early in his career.
He also drank heavily and developed substance abuse issues by the end of the ’60s, which were only worsened following his father’s death in 1973.
When Murry died, Brian retreated to his home and spent his days sleeping, overeating and indulging in drugs and alcohol in what became a serious pattern of self-destructive behaviour.
Though his family took control of his finances in a bid to prevent him from buying more drugs and first wife Marilyn threatened divorce or institutionalise him in the years that followed, Brian resisted help and his mental and physical health continued to deteriorate.
Eventually, Marilyn hired a psychotherapist by the name of Eugene Landy to help her husband – but Landy wasn’t all he seemed.
Eugene Landy
In 1975, Brian entered Landy’s intensive 24-hour therapy program and seemed to benefit from the treatment, taking great strides in his personal and professional life.
WATCH: The Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson’s legacy
He continued to work with Landy for more than a year even though the man’s methods were deeply unconventional, but the Wilson family fired Landy when he started demanding a monthly fee of $US20,000 (approx. $172,000 in 2025).
Brian’s healthy lifestyle didn’t last long after Landy’s departure and he was rehired in 1983, after the musician relapsed and suffered an overdose.
This time Landy took an even more hands-on approach, becoming deeply involved in Brian’s personal and professional life, isolating Brian from his family and even landing credits on multiple Beach Boys songs.
Everything came to a head in the early ’90s when Landy surrendered his California psychology license and went into business with Brian making music together.
Brian’s family also discovered his will had been changed to make Landy the main beneficiary, even over daughters Carny and Wendy Wilson.
The family filed a conservatorship suit in a bid to protect Brian and were able to dissolve the partnership, then filed a restraining order to keep Landy away from Brian.
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Family tragedies
Despite being the eldest of the three Wilson boys, Brian outlived both of his brothers.
In 1983, his middle brother Dennis died after years of drug and alcohol abuse, among other personal struggles.
Despite the band encouraging Dennis to seek treatment, he was unable to stick to any rehabilitation program and experienced homelessness towards the end of his life.
Just days after a violent altercation and subsequent hospital stay, Dennis drowned at Marina Del Rey after a day of heavy drinking. He was 39.
Almost 15 years later, Brian lost his youngest brother Carl to lung cancer.
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The youngest Wilson boy has been smoking cigarettes since he was a teenager and received the cancer diagnosis in 1997, after he fell ill while holidaying in Hawaii.
Carl underwent chemotherapy and continued to play with the Beach Boys even while going through cancer treatment throughout 1997, then died at his home early the following year. He was 51.
Brian struggled with the losses of both of his brothers and would go on to outlive them by decades.
Help is available. Contact the National Alcohol and Other Drug hotline on 1800 250 015, Lifeline on 13 11 14, Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, or the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
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