The daughter of Marlon Brando and his third wife Tarita Teriipaia, Cheyenne Brando was preparing for a promising career as a model — then a chain of tragic events ultimately led to her suicide in 1995 when she was just 25 years old.
IMDbCheyenne Brando, the troubled daughter of actor Marlon Brando.
Cheyenne Brando was the daughter of Hollywood icon Marlon Brando and his third wife, French Polynesian actress Tarita Teriipaia — but her life was far from glamorous.
Raised by her mother in Tahiti, Cheyenne often felt neglected by her famous father. She dropped out of high school and began using drugs as a teenager, but that was just the beginning of her downward spiral.
Her promising career as a model was cut short by a series of events that began in 1989, when she was just 19. First, she was seriously injured in a car crash that left scars on her face. Then, she discovered she was pregnant with the child of her boyfriend, Dag Drollet. The couple moved to Marlon Brando’s Los Angeles home in 1990 to await their baby’s birth, but things took a tragic turn when Cheyenne’s half-brother, Christian Brando, fatally shot Drollet during an argument.
Cheyenne spent the next five years in and out of mental health facilities. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia, lost custody of her son, and tried to take her own life multiple times. She ultimately died by suicide on April 16, 1995, at the age of 25.
This is her heartbreaking story.
The Whirlwind Romance That Led To The Birth Of Cheyenne Brando
Marlon Brando met Tarita Teriipaia in the early 1960s during the filming of Mutiny on the Bounty in Tahiti. Teriipaia was a young actress who played the role of Maimiti, the love interest of Brando’s character. Brando was smitten with Teriipaia, and the two of them married in 1962, when she was 20 and he was 38.
Brando had been married twice before, and he already had at least two children from his previous relationships. Together, Brando and Teriipaia welcomed a son, Simon Teihotu Brando, in 1963, and a daughter, Tarita Cheyenne Brando, in 1970.
Arcola PicturesMarlon Brando and Tarita Teriipaia on the set of Mutiny on the Bounty (1962).
Marlon Brando and Tarita Teriipaia divorced in 1972, and Tarita raised Teihotu and Cheyenne on Tahiti. “I see them on the weekends,” Brando told TIME in 1976. “They fly to Tetiaroa or I go to them. I don’t think I will let them go to the States. As Tahitians, they are too trusting. They would be destroyed in the pace of life in the States.”
Later in life, Cheyenne Brando denied that her father visited so frequently. “I have come to despise my father for the way he ignored me when I was a child,” she said during a 1990 interview, as reported by PEOPLE following her death. “He came to my island maybe once a year but really didn’t seem to care whether he saw me or not. He wanted us but he didn’t want us.”
IMDbA young Cheyenne Brando.
As a teenager, Cheyenne began acting out. She dropped out of high school, used drugs like marijuana, LSD, and PCP, and entered into an on-again, off-again relationship with Dag Drollet, the son of a Tahitian politician who was seven years her senior.
Cheyenne Brando also started a promising modeling career during this time — but it would soon come to a devastating end.
The Beginning Of Cheyenne Brando’s Downward Spiral
In 1989, when Cheyenne was 19, she called her father from Tahiti and asked if she could visit him while he was filming The Freshman in Toronto. When Marlon Brando refused, Cheyenne hung up the phone and drove away in a fury. She ended up crashing her Jeep, resulting in a broken jaw, facial lacerations, and a torn ear.
Marlon flew Cheyenne to Los Angeles, where she underwent reconstructive surgery, but she was left with visible scars. What’s more, shortly after the accident, she found out that she was pregnant with Drollet’s child.
IMDbCheyenne Brando with her father, Marlon Brando, and her boyfriend, Dag Drollet.
The couple had a turbulent relationship. In fact, Drollet was reportedly trying to distance himself from Cheyenne because she was “spoiled” and “unstable,” as his family members told the Los Angeles Times in 1990.
Marlon Brando invited the parents-to-be to live with him in his Mulholland Drive home to await the birth of their baby, but just before the pair left Tahiti, Drollet’s father told him, “Dag, stop this life with Cheyenne because she’s not balanced… you will have great difficulties — perhaps suicide, perhaps she can kill you, or you can die, both of you, because of her.”
Chillingly, these words would prove to be prophetic.
The Murder Of Dag Drollet And Its Tragic Aftermath
On May 16, 1990, when 20-year-old Cheyenne was eight months pregnant, her half-brother, Christian Brando, murdered Dag Drollet in Marlon Brando’s home.
Christian later claimed that Cheyenne had confessed that Drollet was physically abusing her. Christian then confronted Drollet with a gun in an attempt to scare him. However, the firearm went off when Drollet tried to wrest it from Christian’s grasp. Drollet was shot in the face and died at the scene.
Prosecutors didn’t believe Christian’s version of events, and they charged Christian Brando with first-degree murder. However, Cheyenne fled to Tahiti so she didn’t have to testify as a witness in court. Without her statement, the prosecution didn’t have a case, and Christian was able to plead guilty to manslaughter. He spent five years in prison.
MediaPunch Inc / Alamy Stock PhotoMarlon and Christian Brando at a court hearing following the death of Dag Drollet.
Meanwhile, Dag Drollet’s death sent Cheyenne Brando into a deep depression. She gave birth to their son, Tuki Brando, in Tahiti on June 26, 1990, and she entered a psychiatric hospital just days later.
She spent the next five years in and out of treatment. She attempted suicide twice in 1990, and Marlon Brando reportedly wouldn’t keep sharp knives at his Los Angeles home when Cheyenne visited out of fear she would harm herself with them.
In 1993, according to PEOPLE, Cheyenne stated, “When I think of Dag, I want to be dead and be with him.”
During this period, Cheyenne also made serious accusations against her father. In a 1993 interview with the French magazine Paris Match, she claimed that he’d molested her. She also stated that he was an accomplice in Dag Drollet’s murder. Marlon Brando denied these accusations.
Ultimately, Cheyenne Brando lost custody of Tuki to her mother. By 1995, she felt she had nothing left to live for.
The Tragic Suicide Of Cheyenne Brando
On April 16, 1995, 25-year-old Cheyenne Brando died by suicide. It was Easter morning, and she had been visiting her mom, son, and brother at the family home in Tahiti. While Teriipaia went to church and Teihotu ran errands, Cheyenne hanged herself in her bedroom.
Find a GraveCheyenne Brando is buried alongside her former boyfriend.
“Everybody says Cheyenne was mad,” one of her former classmates told PEOPLE in 1995. “She was not mad at all. She was just depressed because of her name.”
Cheyenne was buried in Dag Drollet’s family crypt in Tahiti. Marlon Brando didn’t attend her funeral. Perhaps that’s how Cheyenne would have wanted it, though.
“My father is constantly manipulating people,” Cheyenne Brando said in a 1992 court statement. “I detest my father.”
After reading about the tragic story of Cheyenne Brando, learn about Alice Roosevelt, the wild child of President Theodore Roosevelt. Then, go inside the life of Shannon Lee, the daughter of Bruce Lee who has fought to keep her father’s legacy alive.
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or use their 24/7 Lifeline Crisis Chat.
