Trending Now: SNL star’s wife sat with his dead body for hours after brutal shooting – Fans React

Phil Hartman was a beloved star on SNL who went on to find success on The Simpsons, but his life was tragically cut short after his wife shot him three times before killing herself

Phil Hartman rose to fame when he joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live in 1986. He remained a cast member for eight seasons.

Before his comedic career took off, Hartman worked as a graphic designer while pursuing his lifelong dream of performing. He appeared in a few comedy shows before teaming up with Paul Reubens. Together, they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage production that later aired on HBO in 1981.

Joining SNL catapulted Hartman to national fame, and after leaving the show, he continued to have a thriving career, including voice work on The Simpsons in the 1990s, where he voiced numerous characters, including Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz.

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Hartman was married three times. His first marriage was to Gretchen Lewis in 1970, which ended in divorce two years later in 1972. He then married Lisa Strain in 1982, and they divorced in 1985. In 1987, he married Brynn Omdahl, and together they had two children.

Tragically, on May 27, 1998, the comedian was shot and killed by his wife Brynn in their home in Encino, California.

After returning home, Brynn Hartman and Phil had a heated argument about their relationship and her drug and alcohol use. After the fight, Phil went to bed. Sometime before 3:00 a.m. on May 28, 1998, Brynn entered his bedroom while he was asleep and shot him three times – once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a .38‑caliber revolver he kept in the house. He was 49 years old when he died.

Brynn then drove to a friend’s home, Ron Douglas, and confessed to the killing, though he initially didn’t believe her. Eventually, they went back to the Hartman residence, where Douglas saw Phil’s body and called 911.

By the time police arrived and began escorting the couple’s two young children out of the house, Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom with Phil’s body. Shortly afterward, she took her own life with a second .38‑caliber revolver while inside the room.

A toxicology report later found Brynn had alcohol, cocaine, and an antidepressant (Zoloft) in her system at the time of the killings, a combination investigators said can intensify each substance’s effects. The Los Angeles Police Department described the deaths as resulting from “domestic discord.”

Friends and colleagues were devastated by the news, especially given that the Hartmans’ two children, then aged about 9 and 6, were asleep in the home during the incident.

The autopsy revealed that Brynn had shot Hartman multiple times, first in the forehead which the coroner identified as the fatal injury, again through the neck, and once more through the right forearm and chest.

A total of three shots were fired in the killing of Hartman, who was asleep in bed at the time of the killing and unarmed, according to the autopsy report.