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Owen Wilson: What Happened?

Originally posted Thursday August 30, 2007 12:00 PM EDT

"Owen and Kate were really happy," a Wilson pal says of the couple (in L.A. July 2006). Another source claims Wilsonended the romance: "He can be quite charming, but he is the ultimate bad boy."

For now, his immediate well-being is the primary concern of friends such as Woody Harrelson, Wes Anderson, Samuel L. Jackson and Brad Garrett, who visited Wilson at the hospital, and the actor's close-knit family. Brothers Luke, 35, who initially found Owen, and Andrew, 43, were by his side in the hours and days after the incident; his parents, Robert, 66, and Laura, 67, fought past anguish and exhaustion as they kept a revolving vigil. As the brothers headed out to get take-out dinner on the evening of Aug. 26, "Luke was visibly distraught," says a witness. The following day, as he ran out to Starbucks, his eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. "It's a very hard situation," says Carolina Cerisola, an Argentinean salsa dancer who dated Wilson in 2004 and has remained close to him. "I talked to his uncle. He said Owen is okay. I am just trying to be supportive."

What drove Wilson to an act of self-destruction that one friend calls "the most out-of-character thing"? Asked what brought him to this point, another good friend says, "It would be irresponsible to say it was any single thing. People are complicated. Owen is no different." Those close to him know he is far more complex than the über-relaxed dude he has played to perfection in such hit films as Wedding Crashers, Zoolander and Meet the Parents.

An easygoing college dropout who loves to jog with his Australian cattle dog Garcia, flirt with girls at the beach and skateboard around his neighborhood, at times, friends say, he is also a moody loner who has long struggled with what, in a 2005 Playboy interview, Owen called an "Irish strain of depression." Says Platt: "Oh, he has a dark side, definitely." She got a firsthand view of it after initial criticism of Bottle Rocket, which Wilson cowrote with longtime friend Anderson, who also directed the film. Platt noticed that Wilson barely spoke during the editing process, keeping his stress and feelings to himself.