Kelsey Grammer has opened up about the moment he saw heaven, describing it as ‘the greatest experience of my life.’
The Frasier star has relived his supernatural encounter in his new book, Karen: A Brother Remembers, in which he lays bare the harrowing details of his sister’s 1975 murder.
Grammer also details the devastating run of tragedies to have befallen his family over the course of his life.
His dad was shot to death seven years before Karen’s killing – in 1968 in St Thomas, US Virgin Islands – by a taxi driver who was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Then in 1980, Grammer’s half-brothers Billy and Stephen were killed in what is believed to have been a shark attack while scuba diving, also in the Virgin Islands.
Billy’s body was never recovered, while Stephen’s was found washed ashore.
However, it was the brutal murder and rape of his sister Karen, just two weeks shy of her 19th birthday, in Colorado by a man on a killing spree with two accomplices that had the most profound impact on Gammer.
Following the crime, he descended into a grief-fueled spiral of drug and alcohol abuse.
Grammer believes it was messages from his beloved sister beyond the grave that spurred him on to write the memoir
Karen was just two weeks shy of her 19th birthday when she was brutally raped and stabbed to death
But the Florida and New Jersey-raised actor found solace in his Christian Science faith, and his consultations with mediums convinced him that Karen was communicating with him from beyond the grave.
He believes it was messages from Karen that spurred him on to write the memoir, and it was her influence that allowed him to relive long-buried memories of their early life together.
One particularly vivid memory was of the magical moment he was surfing on a blistering hot day in Palm Beach, Florida, age 16.
‘I was truly one with the waves,’ he writes. ‘The rides just kept coming one after the other as I would kick out of one and begin another almost an instant later.
‘And suddenly, a perfect wave. I turned, dropped in instantly, and was covered up as it broke above my head and cocooned me in a cascading tunnel of ocean.’
As he looked up, he says he could see the sun shining through the ceiling of water above him and he immediately felt both invisible and immortal at the same time.
‘I whispered to myself I no longer had anything to fear,’ he writes. ‘Not Death, not anything. It was the greatest experience of my life.
‘This is the light I see when people describe The Light!’ he continues. ‘It is the Light I carry in me. It is perhaps the light that carried me through so much darkness.
‘It was on a surfboard that I saw Heaven and realized I was safe no matter what, forever.’
He adds: ‘Karen brought me here. Karen knew what was in my heart. Karen is here with me. In every moment, she is here.’
Grammer admits that his sister’s sudden and violent death led him to consult with various psychics in a bid to reconnect with her.
He even produced the TV series ‘Medium’, which ran for five seasons.
And it was through one ‘regression’ session with a medium he refers to as ‘Esther’ that he received what he believes was a powerful message from Karen, reminding him not to wallow in grief but to remember the ‘days of splendor.’
Following the crime, Grammer descended into a grief-fueled spiral of drug and alcohol abuse
Grammer was surfing on a blistering hot day in Palm Beach, Florida, age 16, when he saw heaven (photograph, left, from his 1970 yearbook). He believes it was messages from Karen (right) that spurred him on to write the memoir
Brother and sister were very close as youngsters growing up in Florida and New Jersey
‘Karen brought me here. Karen knew what was in my heart. Karen is here with me. In every moment, she is here’
In the ‘regression’ session he had with Esther, she led him down a series of steps toward a cave.
‘At the entrance of the cave, she said I would meet two young people, and I did.
‘They were a pair of lovely Asian children who took me by the hand and led me toward the mouth of the cave.’
The children then morphed into Karen and Grammer, and Esther informed him that his sister had something to give him.
As he searched his thoughts for what that might be, he suddenly pictured that surfboard, ‘a direct link to my understanding of God and my relationship with Him.’
He continues: ‘But suddenly the surfboard changed into a brown slalom ski – a water ski… I loved that ski.
‘And then the vision shifted to an irreplaceable day when Karen and I, with our neighborhood friend, Luanne, had gone skiing in the late afternoon.’
In his vision, he remembered the sun setting behind him as he water-skied, cutting back and forth across the boat’s wake and, as he made a deep turn, sending a 20-foot wave of water into the sun’s rays.
‘I was not aware of the visual effect but the sensation and the warmth on my back and the spray on my body were one of the greatest experiences I have ever known,’ he writes.
It was only 50 years later, he says, that he was able to see the moment through Karen’s eyes.
‘She wanted me to see it,’ he writes.
Then Esther told him Karen had something else to tell him.
‘Karen wanted me to remember – this day and the thousands of others when love was all we knew, and Creation’s great light filled us with wonder.’
Karen’s tragic death came shortly after she relocated to Colorado Springs in 1975 to join her boyfriend following a semester in Georgia.
Grammer found fame playing Dr Frasier Crane in the series Cheers
He reprised the role in the spin-off Frasier, alongside David Hyde Pierce
‘I whispered to myself I no longer had anything to fear,’ he writes. ‘Not Death, not anything.’ Grammer with his wife Kayte and son Kelsey at Miami Beach in 2015
Kelsey Grammer with his wife Kayte Walsh
She had gone to the Red Lobster, where she worked, about 11pm to wait for a friend finishing her shift.
That night, Freddie Glenn and two accomplices were plotting to rob the restaurant – but when they arrived behind the building, they noticed Karen outside.
Abandoning the robbery, the group drove Karen to one of their apartments, where they brutally raped her.
Later, they took her to a secluded alley, where Glenn stabbed her 42 times.
Freddie Glenn was convicted of Karen’s murder, and was originally given the death penalty, before his sentence was commuted to life in prison.
He has been denied parole four times. At his hearing in 2014, Grammer said he forgives him, but believes he should never be released.
Michael Corbett died in prison in 2019, while the third accomplice was never found.
Karen: A Brother Remembers by Kelsey Grammer is published by Harper Select