Gary Busey Claims That He's Been To Heaven – And Even Had A Fight About How It Looks On A Film Set

Gary Busey getting into a fist fight with another actor about how Heaven should look is one of the most bizarre Hollywood anecdotes you’re likely to hear. Given his off-the-wall reputation, though, it’s not too hard to believe. And while it’s easy to laugh at Busey’s antics, there’s actually much more to the story – and it says a lot about how this once sought-after actor became the man he is today.

Leaning into his niche

These days, Busey leans into his wacky persona. He recently starred in the Amazon reality show Pet Judge, in which he delivered his unique verdicts on cases of people arguing about their pets. He can also be relied upon to lend his brand of manic madness to low-rent schlock like the Sharknado franchise and Bunker of Blood: Chapter 8: Butcher’s Bake Off: Hell’s Kitchen. Whatever that is.

A life-changing injury

It’s all a far cry from the glory days when Busey was genuinely a fierce acting talent. Before he became a punchline, he was both an Oscar hopeful and a Hollywood hellraiser. In truth, his erratic behavior may have been at least partly caused by a traumatic head injury. As his son Jake put it to The Hollywood Reporter magazine in 2019, “The post-accident version of him turned his personality up to 11.”

Busey's heaven

Indeed, this accident also provided the backdrop to the alleged on-set Heaven disagreement. In Quigley, he played a man who died and came back to life in another form. But Busey believed wholeheartedly that, following his accident, he had been to the afterlife and remembered how it looked. When someone else claimed they had also been there and disagreed with Busey’s vision of it, there was Hell to pay. 

His football dreams were dashed

To go back to where it all began, though, Busey’s life and career could have been vastly different if he had never injured his knee while on a football scholarship at Kansas’ Pittsburg State University. It meant the future he’d imagined as a professional footballer wasn’t in the cards anymore. He turned to theater studies but still didn’t pursue acting immediately. Instead, he initially focused on being a musician.

Drumming up a name for himself

In the late ’60s, he and his group The Rubber Band went to California to pursue their dreams. Busey was the drummer and also sang; the band were actually so good that Epic Records signed them to record an album. Busey also played drums on a number of Leon Russell songs, and reportedly played with Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson as well.

Seamless transition to Hollywood

As we know, though, neither football nor music would be where Busey’s future lay. Somewhere along the way he connected with an acting teacher who taught him to cold read and to be camera-ready. According to Busey himself, his path into the movie industry was fairly smooth. He told The Hollywood Reporter, “I started landing jobs right away: boom, boom, boom.”

Winning them with his intellect

Busey’s breakout role came in 1978’s The Buddy Holly Story. He reportedly landed the part after telling producers their script contained some false information. He knew this because he was already working on a biopic with Holly’s drummer Jerry Allison at the time. To convince the producers he had what it took, the multi-talented star played several Holly songs in a recording studio. Faultlessly.

Busey's iconic era

Busey would receive an Academy Award nomination for his performance as Holly, and he became a buzzed-about leading man. However, it wouldn’t be until a decade later that he co-starred in a series of hits that fully delivered on his promise. From 1987 to 1993 Busey leant his unhinged brilliance to Lethal Weapon, Predator 2, Point Break and The Firm

His heart was in the music

While he will forever be remembered for these action-thriller roles, the fact that Busey never truly capitalized on the heat Buddy Holly gave him is curious. In 2019 Jake told The Hollywood Reporter that, following the Oscar nomination, he remembered stacks of scripts lying on the dining table in the family home. But Busey simply wasn’t interested at the time, preferring to write music instead.

Reckless partying

In the end, his peers may have benefited from Busey’s alternative priorities. As Jake lamented, “Kurt Russell, Henry Winkler: there was a whole list of guys who would step in. That was frustrating for my mom and me.” While he did work during this period, Busey’s penchant for hard partying also played a part in stopping his career from truly progressing. 

Dangerous relationship with drugs

It reportedly wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary for Busey to crawl home from a party, sleep for two to three days, and disappear again for days on end. Alcohol and drugs were his vices and, over the years, their grip on him would tighten. He wound up overdosing on a number of occasions, which were followed by stays in detox facilities. 

The eccentric Busey brand

As the years went on, the unpredictable star also developed a reputation for eccentricity. Sometimes he came across as a loveable weirdo, such as when he squirted Swedish interviewers with a hose. Then there was the time he spoke about how Los Angeles county resembled a giant tortilla. Odder still, this opinion had been voiced after he’d been asked for his view on the Oscars.

Taking things too far

Busey’s wackiness could make people uncomfortable, though. A great example is his infamously drug-fueled TV appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in 1990. There have also been accusations of violence toward co-workers. He allegedly kicked the lead actor of Piranha 3D in the stomach, as revealed by actor Paul Scheer on the Doug Loves Movies podcast. 

The ultimate how to be Busey Guide

Of course, there’s also the “Buseyisms.” The year 2019 saw the publication of Buseyisms: Gary Busey’s Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. The book, part-memoir and part-motivational self-help opus, featured a collection of many of his beloved acronyms. You see, Busey has long extolled the benefits of his own personal way with words, and it has bewildered and delighted the online and wider world in equal measure.

The nature of a Buseyism

Allow Busey himself to explain the nature of a Buseyism with an extract from the book. He wrote, “I take the letters that spell a word to create a definition for the word in the truth of its deeper, dimensional meaning. I weave in my personal anecdotes along with my musings on how I live life successfully according to my experiences.”

The Story behind Busey's B.I.B.L.E.

“I may turn concepts you usually believe in upside down with my bizarre stories, but that comes with the dinner,” continued the actor. “These are my life lessons, my B.I.B.L.E. – Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.” Fascinatingly, the eccentric wordplay the world loves so much actually has its origin in the tragic accident that befell Busey in 1988. 

His brief time on the other side

As Busey told The Guardian newspaper in 2020, “About 25 years ago, I had an accident on a Harley-Davidson. I went off the bike without a helmet, hit my head into a kerb, split my skull, passed away after brain surgery and went to the other side – the spiritual realm where I got information.” Yes, Busey believes he discovered the key to Buseyisms when he “died.”

Hope and faith

“I came back, and these messages, these definitions, came to me first-class,” continued Busey. “I’ll think of a word and write the word down without thinking.” His favorite Buseyism is, “Faith – those letters stand for Fantastic, Adventurous in Trusting Him.” But he’s also partial to Hope, which, “stands for Heavenly Offerings Prevail Eternally.” 

Playing doctor

Fittingly, the very first Buseyism was uttered when he was recovering from his surgery in hospital. As recounted by third wife Steffanie to The Guardian, “He kept barging into patients’ rooms and reorganizing their drawers. So, his wife at the time said to the doctor, ‘Give him a lab coat and tell him to pretend he is preparing for a role as a doctor.’”

Neat – Nice, Exciting, and Tight

Unusual as this request was, the doctor reportedly agreed to it. Steffanie continued, “So he would go on the rounds with the doctor and, while the doctor would be treating patients, he would go into their sock and underwear drawers and organize them. He was tidying up one drawer that was a complete mess. Then he said, ‘Neat – Nice, Exciting, and Tight.’ That was his first Buseyism.”

An unearthly happiness

Incredibly, Busey insisted he has full recollection of what happened to him while he lay dying on the operating table. He recounted, “I was surrounded by angels. Balls of light floating all around me. And I felt trust, love, protection, and happiness like you cannot feel on earth. It’s the feeling the angels live in.”

Finding his soul

Busey claimed that, while he lay there having an out-of-body experience, a trio of angels approached him. He explained, “I was a quarter-of-an-inch wide and 1 foot long. That is your soul, and your soul is housed in the column of your spine. And three balls of light came up to me and talked to me.”

Choosing life

Busey continued, “The one on the left talked to me in an androgynous voice and said the direction I was going in was good, but because of my responsibility to mankind I had to look for helping spirits around. Then a light said, ‘You may come to us now or return to your body and continue your destiny.’” He took the second option.

Busey's truth

“Every time he spoke, I felt so loved, like a little baby in the arms of his brother, so when you hear the truth over there you do it,” explained the grateful Busey. “And the word Truth stands for Taking Real Understanding to Heart. That is the truth of your essence and your soul. The truth told me I wasn’t finished over here on Earth.”

Piecing together his story

The Hollywood Reporter’s interview with Busey and Jake revealed more about the reality of the situation. Here, Busey revealed he actually doesn’t have a memory of the day of the accident but is able to put together bits and pieces from other people’s accounts in order to tell the story. Jake, a talented actor himself and star of Stranger Things and The Frighteners, has total recall of the day, though.

The tragic accident

The date was December 4, 1988, and Busey was riding his motorcycle at the junction of Los Angeles’ Robertson and Washington Boulevards. His back tire lost traction and the motorbike began to swing back and forth. Busey hit the brake and this made the bike flip over. Luckily, a nearby crew of paramedics, who were having dinner, saw the accident and came to his aid.  

Things were never the same

Amazingly, a police vehicle was also in the area to scout the L.A. Marathon route, due to take place the following day. The injured actor was quickly brought to Cedars-Sinai hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with a subdural hematoma. After a number of hours on the operating table, his life was saved. But things would never be the same again, as Jake admitted. 

A jarring new normal

“He was a vegetable in a wheelchair staring at the wall,” confessed Jake. “At 17, I had to teach him with my mom to talk, to eat, to feed himself. To walk again. To write. That was very difficult for me at that age.” Indeed, the terrible damage done to Busey’s brain unleashed his personality; it lessened his inhibitions, gave him a quick temper and also left him vulnerable to delusions of self-importance.

The Busey divide

Over the years, Busey, therefore, became more known for his outlandish conduct than anything else. Sadly, Jake admitted he’s always struggled with this. He confessed to The Hollywood Reporter, “The fact that there’s an entire generation of people who don’t know the man he was before the accident – this incredibly talented actor, this force of nature – it’s just hard.”

Damaged for the better

All the same, Busey himself doesn’t fully agree that the accident changed his personality. The Oscar nominee told The Guardian that his brain actually became freer after the accident. He said, “I don’t have brain damage; I have a brain disordered in a better direction because of how it happened and how it recovered. Oh boy!” 

Bittersweet aftermath

Busey also insists he wouldn’t want to change history to remove the accident from his past, saying, “It was part of my journey, my growing up, my understanding.” Still, a sad consequence of any supposed character changes is that both he and his son’s careers were affected. Jake told The Hollywood Reporter, “The same Busey name that helped me 30 years ago has become a scorpion’s tail because it’s associated with insanity.”

Working on Quigley

Speaking of insanity, Busey’s brush with the afterlife and his lack of impulse control may have contributed to the bizarre moment on the Quigley set. In the movie, Busey played CEO Archie Channing, a cynical man who died and, in order to make amends for his mistakes in life, was reincarnated as a white Pomeranian. Named Quigley. 

Is this it?P

Perhaps the subject matter, despite its preposterous nature, struck a chord with Busey. As claimed by co-star Curtis Armstrong in a 2012 interview with entertainment website The A.V. Club, the kooky star had some opinions on some of the movie’s production design. Armstrong chuckled, “He showed up on a set made to look like Heaven, and he looked around and said, ‘I can’t play this scene.’”

Redesigning heaven

“They were three days behind at this point,” continued Armstrong. “But Busey said, ‘It’s nothing like this. I’ve been to Heaven, and it doesn’t look like this. That sofa’s all wrong. That mirror is ridiculous. They don’t even have mirrors!’ It was ridiculous. He was completely nuts about the design of Heaven.”

The ultimate battle

As off-the-wall as this may seem, according to Armstrong it proceeded to get even crazier. He claimed, “But then on top of it, one of the guys playing an angel had also died and come back. And this guy got into an argument with Busey about the way Heaven looked! The two of them wound up coming to blows and they had to send everybody home.”

Finally landing God

If you thought this would be Busey’s last brush with Heaven, though, you would be wrong. In 2019 he took on a role that he dubbed his most exciting since playing Buddy Holly in 1978. He performed in the Off-Broadway musical Only Human, in which he played – of course – God. Sometimes things in this life just make sense.

Biblical workplace comedy

A Biblical workplace comedy in the style of The Office, except with rousing pop-rock tunes, Only Human’s official synopsis went like this: “Before they were enemies, they were co-workers. Jesus and Lucifer never saw eye-to-eye, but when an extreme case of creative differences gets the best of them, all Hell breaks loose…literally.”

Far from a hit

Unfortunately, the reviews for the show were not exactly glowing. For instance, website Theater Mania wrote, “Only Human, starring Gary Busey as The Almighty, will make you doubt the existence of God.” To be fair, though, most reviews did reserve the bulk of their criticism for co-star Mike Squillante. Busey himself was generally cited as the best thing about the show.

Don’t Expect a Tragedy Here

All in all, though, we doubt bad reviews would ever trouble a man like Busey. After all, what’s a bad review to someone who has experienced death itself? Although, to be fair, as he told The Guardian, the enlightened eccentric doesn’t even believe in death. With maybe his best Buseyism of all, he claimed, “You never die. Death stands for Don’t Expect a Tragedy Here.”