Bronson Pinchot is still reeling from his brutal childhood with a violent, absentee father.
“He was incredibly abusive,” the actor, 65, tells Page Six’s “Unforgettably Famous” series. “I never got one nanosecond of warmth from him or tenderness or parental anything — and that’s when he was in a good mood.
“When he was in a bad mood, we would have to run away, and the police would have to come and get him.”
Unfortunately for Pinchot, who is best known for his role as Balki Bartokomous in the ABC sitcom “Perfect Strangers,” things were not much better at school, where he was bullied for being poor and overweight.
“Teachers and crossing guards and everybody else would say, ‘You’re a fat pig, and you’ve got holes in your clothes,’” he shares. “It was a different world, [an] entirely different world, where everybody could tell you that you were not like them and therefore not wanted. I mean, every day, all day.”
The “Risky Business” star remembers “disassociating” as a teen, a behavior that continued while he was in college.
Eventually, his father abandoned the family, and Pinchot did not see him again until he was in his mid-20s.
It was not a happy reunion.
“He was just absent in a different way,” the “Beverly Hills Cop” star explains. “I never knew him except as a person who beat my mother and broke the windows and kicked the Christmas presents and hurt people.”
Starring on a hit TV show was “incredibly difficult” for Pinchot, too, because he was suffering from depression.
He knew he needed therapy but was frightened to go because it would only confirm he was “as badly off” as he expected, so his mental health “just got worse and worse.”
Pinchot attempted to stay grounded during his time on “Perfect Strangers,” which aired from 1986 to 1993, but was not successful.
“How can you keep your feet on the ground when you have withdrawals, when you don’t even know who you are and you’re hoping Bronson comes back?” he asks. “I did my best. I made all the mistakes that you can make.”
The “True Romance” star says the sitcom ultimately helped because he knew families loved it, “and so I knew in my heart that it would be crushing for people if I did misbehave.” As a result, he never misused drugs or alcohol because his dad “abused them so badly” and he “didn’t want to be like him at all.”
Pinchot, who stars in the upcoming Shonda Rhimes series “The Residence,” says he has finally found some semblance of peace later in life.
“I can get to happiness if I want to,” he shares. “Sometimes things hurt me, but I’m not — I don’t think I’m in a dungeon like I used to. I know how to get out.
“The only difference between me now and when I was 27 is I thought I was locked in a dungeon and that’s where I had to stay. Now, if something hurts me or somebody breaks my heart or something is disappointing or tragic, I know there is a way out and that it changes.”
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or text START to 88788.
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