Tragic Details About Young Sheldon's Annie Potts

Annie Potts is an actor who transcends generations. In the 1980s, she gained fame for her delightfully sardonic portrayal of wise-cracking secretary Janine Melnitz in the original "Ghostbusters" films. Potts later reprised her role as Janine in the more modern "Ghostbusters" legacy sequels. In the 1990s, she added another iconic role to her repertoire when she voiced Bo Peep in Pixar's first two "Toy Story" movies, eventually reprising that role in "Toy Story 4" some 20 years later. Then, from 2017 to 2024, Potts played the key role of Sheldon Cooper's grandmother in the "Big Bang Theory" prequel series "Young Sheldon," appearing opposite her "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" co-star Mckenna Grace.

However, Potts' stunning transformation hasn't been without its hurdles. And, much like some of her fellow "Young Sheldon" cast members, she's had her fair share of personal and professional tragedy. From very nearly losing her life as a young woman to enduring multiple divorces in the following years, Potts has certainly had to endure quite a bit in her time. But she's nothing if not a survivor and has only maintained that attitude as she's aged. "It's like, 'Man, this is great, because I almost didn't have it.' So I just try to relish it," Potts told Senior Planet in 2024. "It's made me really take care of my body because it got broken up pretty badly. I have an appetite for life." With that in mind, here are some tragic details about "Young Sheldon" star Annie Potts.

In 1973, five years before Annie Potts made her big-screen debut, a terrible car crash threatened not only her acting career but her life. At the time, Potts was 21 years old and had only recently married her first husband, Steven Hartley. According to Potts, she and Hartley were driving along the highway when a group of drunk teenagers drag racing down the wrong side of the road plowed into them. Potts says the impact broke almost every bone in her lower body. She also reportedly lost the heel of her right foot in the crash, while Hartley lost his left leg.

"I almost died," Potts said point blank in her March 2024 interview with Senior Planet. The actor spoke more about the life-changing incident that same month during a chat with The Guardian. "It took a very long time to recover. I'm still trying to recover," she confessed. Potts has had over 20 orthopedic surgeries as a result of the crash — including an ankle replacement she got in 2022. About a decade before that particular procedure, Dr. Greg Vanvakaris — a strength and conditioning specialist who began working with Potts years after the accident — noted that her ankle was often a source of trouble. "An acute flair-up in her arthritic ankle ... can be extremely debilitating and painful for her," Vanvakaris said (via HowStuffWorks). Despite the pain, Potts is very energetic and continues working to stay active and healthy. 

Navigating everything that goes along with a divorce is difficult to do once — never mind three times. And while many of the stars of "Young Sheldon" have their own real-life love stories to tell, Potts' has certainly had its ups and downs. As previously mentioned, Potts married her first husband, Steven Hartley, in 1973. The two went their separate ways in 1978, and Potts married TV actor and producer Greg Antonacci almost immediately afterward. But when the 1970s ended, so too did Potts and Antonacci's marriage. Just one year after her second divorce was finalized, Potts said "I do" for the third time. She married film producer B. Scott Senechal in 1981. The couple welcomed a son that same year, though they ended up calling it quits in 1989.

Speaking to Glamour in 2022, Potts admitted that, after her third divorce, she was kind of over the whole romance thing. "It was like, Why did I think I needed somebody else? I was totally self-sufficient and taking care of myself and happy about it. I had my son in tow, and life was good," she said. However, the "Ghostbusters" star soon met her fourth husband, producer James Hayman. The two wed in 1990 and have been together ever since, welcoming two more sons along the way. In a 2018 interview with Closer, Potts explained that she knew Hayman was the one when she saw how well he got along with her firstborn.

In May 2024, "Young Sheldon" came to an end after seven seasons — and it was rather difficult for Annie Potts to say goodbye. "I really don't understand why they canceled it because it's the No. 1 [comedy] on network TV," Potts told The Daily Beast, adding, "It's the No. 1 show on Netflix. I can say this now because it's over: Are they stupid?" Potts added the disclaimer that she is a bit of a "workaholic," which may have affected her perspective. Still, she also noted that she was going to miss playing a motherly figure to the young cast of "Young Sheldon" — especially seeing as how her real-life sons were already grown up. "There's been a lot of grieving," she said of the show's conclusion. "We've been together for so long now and raised the children sort of communally, and it's such a beautiful show."

Speaking on "The Talk" around that same time, Potts also confessed that she didn't know how many acting jobs she had left. "I'm old, this could be my last rodeo. I mean, I thought about that though, panicked me a little bit," she said (via People). However, while Young Sheldon ended during the first half of 2024, a spin-off series titled "Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage" premiered that October — the very same month Potts celebrated her 72nd birthday. Once the new show arrived, Potts got the chance to reprise her "Young Sheldon" role in a guest-starring capacity.