Looking fragile and tiny, Natasha Lyonne was at the premiere for “Saturday Night Live” boss Lorne Michaels’ documentary in Manhattan Thursday night, surrounded by a coterie of friends.
“It took everything she had just to come here,” admitted one pal of the beloved star’s appearance, which came just hours after Page Six spotted her being forced off a Delta jet this week as she appeared “out of it.” On Friday, Lyonne insisted she had taken Lunesta, a sleeping pill, after boarding.
The plane was forced to return to the gate when Lyonne, sitting in first class, did not respond as flight attendants asked her to close her laptop and fasten her seatbelt. As a Delta staffer boarded the plane to ask if the actress needed medical attention, she asked, “Where are we?”
Those closest to the actress — who helmed the hit Netflix series “Russian Doll” — have been worried about her for a while, we’re told, and this latest incident has them even more fearful for her health.
It’s been a year of change for Lyonne, who revealed in January that she had relapsed after a long period of sobriety.
The former child star’s publicist parted ways with her earlier this year. She is not currently working with her top agents at CAA, we’re told, and her Peacock show “Poker Face” was not renewed for a third season, a decision sources insist was hers.
We have reached out to Lyonne’s new publicist, while CAA said she remains a client.
Friends are now desperate to help the actress, who has a role in the new season of HBO’s “Euphoria,” get back on solid ground.
Lyonne, 47, has spoken in the past about how she almost died from heroin and alcohol addiction in the aughts — a problem that led her friend, actor Michael Rapaport, to evict her from his West Village home as she spiraled. In 2005, she was admitted to a Manhattan hospital suffering from hepatitis C, infective endocarditis and a collapsed lung related to intravenous drug use, later leading to open heart surgery.
She has spoken openly of her struggles as well as her sobriety; in fact, she was one of the supportive celebs, along with Seth Meyers and her then-boyfriend Fred Armisen, involved in John Mulaney’s December 2020 intervention.
“Recovery is a lifelong process. Anyone out there struggling, remember you’re not alone,” Lyonne posted on X in January as she admitted to relapsing after 10 years of sobriety. “Grateful for love & smart feet.”
The “Orange is the New Black” alum also cited hockey player Sophie “Bambo” Braverman as one of her driving forces. Deadline previously reported that she wrote and is set to direct a biopic about Braverman biopic, set to begin production this summer.
Last month, Lyonne wrote on X, “Proud to report this kid is doing a whole lot better & back on her feet.”
She appeared sober at the party for the Peacock doc “Lorne!” after turning up to the event with journalist Ronan Farrow’s boyfriend Hamer Morgenstern. “They lean on each other, in a nice way,” said a source. She was pictured leaving the bash with Farrow.
Meanwhile, “SNL” stars including Sarah Sherman and late night host Seth Meyers were also seen supporting Lyonne throughout the evening.
“She’s obviously going through something very challenging right now and unfortunately she has to do that in the public eye to some degree, which compounds things,” said the friend. “This is something that just takes you over. You have no control … it’s just so sad because Natasha has been fine for years.”
Trouble has been brewing for more than a year, Page Six is told.
Lyonne confided in those around her that she was going to rehab last April as she prepared to launch Asteria Film Co., an AI film studio focused on ethical, copyright-cleared technology. It’s not clear if that happened. She started the company with media exec Bryn Mooser, whom she has been dating.
She was slated to direct her feature film debut, “Uncanny Valley,” a hybrid project featuring AI tools, co-written with Brit Marling and set in a “parallel present,” but it’s not certain if the film has gone into production.
Hollywood pals have been sticking close, we’re told. Movie boss Brian Grazer was seen propping Lyonne up as she walked the red carpet, clad in a sheer top and no bra, at the premiere of Season 3 of “Euphoria” Wednesday in Hollywood.
Hours later, she boarded a Delta red-eye from LA to NYC, where she planned to tape an interview with Drew Barrymore for her talk show.
Detailing more of the incident, an onlooker told us, “At least four cabin crew came over to Natasha … they kept saying ‘Ma’am,’ ma’am,’ but they couldn’t even get her attention when they were bending over in her face, she was so, so out of it.
“She was slumped down in her seat with her feet up on the seat in front of her, and her laptop open on her legs. The cabin crew kept coming over and closed the laptop. They took it out of her hand and put it to the side, they asked her to fasten her seatbelt, but she didn’t ever.”
While the onlooker said that Lyonne was never “disruptive,” they added, “She was so out if it, it was unsafe. In an emergency she wouldn’t be able to move. There truly were multiple flight attendants, at least four, plus a gate agent. They tried to get her attention and no one could. It took a long time to get her up.
“At one point, one of them shook her and, in her signature raspy voice, she said, ‘You scared me.”
When Lyonne got up to go to the bathroom, passengers were fearful she would lock herself inside. Instead, she came out, eating a bag of pretzels.
“She was very peaceful and walked off the plane of her own volition,” said the onlooker. “She didn’t cause a scene.”
On Friday, she wrote on X, “I took a Lunesta once seated, to ensure some shut eye on the Delta One red eye flight to NYC. Boarded seamlessly with just a backpack and sneakers, eager for a nap. Plan was to be bushy tailed & beauty rested, as I was meant to head straight to glam for a slot with our beloved @DrewBarrymore, upon landing. Was looking forward to seeing Drew & an in depth convo, but I guess ICE had other plans & I was detained instead. Sign of the times, I guess. Thanks for all the love and support. Never had a problem with @Delta or @TSA before. Heart is with our unpaid@TSA workers.”
Lyonne was just seven years old when she was cast in the recurring role of Opal in “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.” She described her childhood as unstable and turbulent.
When she was eight, her boxing promoter father moved the family to Israel, where “his dreams were about bringing Mike Tyson to the Tel Aviv Hilton and becoming the Don King of Israel,” she told Rolling Stone.
She thought she might grow up to be a spy, though she said the “hypervigilance I was experiencing was more about being a kid in an unsafe home. I was just developing this high emotional IQ, for better or worse, about the human condition.”
After her parents divorced and she moved back to New York with her mom, she was kicked out of the Upper East Side yeshiva where she had been on scholarship for selling pot. She then started NYU at 16 to study film, before dropping out.
In the late ’90s, Lyonne rose to fame with roles in “American Pie,” “But I’m a Cheerleader” and “Slums of Beverly Hills.”
Insecurity led her to drugs, the actress has said, and she was arrested for a DUI in 2001, then charged in 2004 with mischief, trespassing and harassment of a neighbor.
After attending court-appointed rehab in 2006, Lyonne slowly began to turn her life around. “I was definitely as good as dead,” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2012.
She had a big comeback with the Netflix hit “OITNB, in 2013, playing inmate Nicky Nichols. Her character’s heroin use was something that the actress was all too familiar with.
In Season Three, Nichols underwent heart surgery as a result of drug use, just as Lyonne had. No makeup was required to create the post-op scar.
“By no means was that an enjoyable scene for me,” Lyonne told People magazine. “I had to call on memories of painful feelings … my experience was so similar but yet so far removed.”
Lyonne dated “SNL” vet Armisen for eight years before they announced their split in April 2022. “I honestly think we broke up because I wanted a swimming pool,’” Lyonne joked to the Hollywood Reporter. “We love each other just about as much as two people can love each other and we’re still talking all the time, but Freddy doesn’t like a swimming pool.”
Those who love Lyonne just want her to get help. “She’s so talented, so f–king wonderful and brilliant,” said one close insider.
“I think it was very courageous to go out,” the friend in the know added of her appearance in New York City just two days after the plane incident. “Many people after an incident like that would hide from the world, you would not see them for weeks or months, but this shows she’s strong and confident and she doesn’t want to be sidelined — nor should she be.”
