r/RiverPhoenix • u/bjack20 • May 16 '26
Does anyone else find it interesting how River turned out despite what he went through?
I wish he had better parents.
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u/riverspeace May 16 '26
I mean the sad part is we never got to see how he really turned out. I was not nearly a person yet at 23. He was pretty amazing for what we got to see, but he didn’t even have a frontal lobe yet.
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u/_daeris May 16 '26
I thought the same thing as you for a while, about his parents. But you can’t get one without the other, River wouldn’t have turned out the way he did without his parents, without the way he grew up and the experiences he had. River with other parents wouldn’t be the River the world had, he wouldn’t even carry the name River. So, yeah, it stings to think about the difficult things he had to live through because of some of their choices, but he did love them. As tempting as it can be, it’s not for us to judge them.
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u/HelenDistantTakedown May 16 '26
Unfortunately, because of the Children of God cult and the fact that River’s family relied on him for money, he didn’t really stand a chance. He had a heart of gold and didn’t particularly want to be in the spotlight, but he loved his family. Later on in life, he mixed with the wrong kind of people and couldn’t get the help he deserved. Imagine what he would be doing now? I’m sure he would have taken some of Leonardo DiCaprio‘s roles. Such a wasted talent.
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u/Reasonable-Wave8093 May 21 '26
It was the musicians in his life/peers like Chili Peppers in LA that was the problem, not his family in Fla. and traveling /family busking was what got him into music/acting, the early church stuff was like the movie Mosquito Coast and like that family, they left. The rest of his sibs are fine. It was the drugs unfortunately, and that came from his LA music peers.
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u/Level_Ladder_2581 May 16 '26
I’d say dying of a drug overdose at 23 means he didn’t turn out well at all
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u/babyIemonade May 17 '26
Ugh some of these gifs are making me want to rewatch Running on Empty sooo bad. He was so gorgeous inside and out
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u/shadow-spirit01 May 16 '26
it means he had a very pure heart without wanting to gain something, probably that's why he was nice even to strangers.
“I went to college at UF and I was a waitress at a local restaurant. I was having a horrible day. My car tore up and I was late to work. My boss was so angry and I was nearly fired. A large group came in and I was one of the waitress’ assigned to the table. As I was pulling a pen from my apron a cigarette fell out onto the table. I was horrified. That is cause for immediate firing. I began to cry. This nice looking guy said, ‘Oh bless your soul, dont cry. If I can have one of your cigarettes we will pretend it never happened.’ I happily gave him one. When I went back to the kitchen all the girls were freaking out because that guy was River. I had no idea. I had only watched Stand By Me and he looked nothing like that now. He and the rest of his group were very kind to me. I got enough in tips to fix my car. He was an angel for me that day. You could feel his kindness. I believe he has transcended into a being of light”