How Marlon Brando Failed His Troubled Son

Manslaughter

According to James Kunen, Robin Micheli, Dan Knapp, and Logan Bentley in People Magazine, Marlon Brando once called 911 to tell an operator that someone in his house had been shot. The person shot was Dag Drollet, the boyfriend of Brando’s daughter, Cheyenne Brando. The person who shot Drollet was Christian Brando, who killed Drollet accidentally after Cheyenne, his pregnant ex-sister, complained to him that Drollet was mistreating her and slapping her.

At trial, Christian’s attorneys would say that Christian Brando confronted Drollet with a handgun, which Drollet later tried to take away from Brando. No witnesses saw the accident — Marlon Brando, his wife, and Cheyenne were all in different parts of the house. Marlon Brando would attempt CPR to resuscitate Drollet, but the bullet had gone through Drollet’s neck.

When the police came to the crime scene, they confiscated a rifle, shotgun, pistol, assault rifle, and silencer from Christian. They also said Cheyenne Brando showed no sign of injury and arrested Christian on a first-degree murder charge. Christian would later phone a friend from the Santa Monica jail:

    “I didn’t want to shoot him. If I was going to kill that guy, I would have taken him to Franklin Canyon and hit him in the head with a baseball bat and pulverized the guy.”

As to whether Drollet abused Cheyenne, People Magazine reports that Marlon Brando said he didn’t believe Drollet abused Cheyenne, instead citing his daughter's history of “psychological problems’ and making false allegations against family members. Christian Brando would also discredit Cheyenne’s allegations against Drollet because of her psychological struggles, saying:

    “I feel like a complete chump for believing her.”

Testifying in court for a reduced sentence for his son, Marlon Brando said that “I think that perhaps I failed as a father” and teared up when he confessed all the ways he could have been a better father to Christian.

According to Robert Jablon at the Associated Press, one of Christian Brando’s lawyers was the famous Robert Shapiro, who was also part of the “Dream Team” that represented O.J. Simpson. Christian would have his murder charge dropped due to Cheyenne, a key witness, not testifying — at the time, Marlon Brando had her admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and the prosecution couldn’t get her back to California. Christian then received a plea deal, where he plead guilty to manslaughter and five years in prison.

Later, Cheyenne Brando gave birth to a son. In 1995, at 25, she died by suicide in Tahiti after losing custody of her son, Tuki, who became raised by Drollet’s parents.