Gary Coleman’s Ex Shannon Price Says She ‘Had No Choice’ But to Take Him Off Life Support

Shannon Price is opening up about the death of her ex-husband Gary Coleman in the upcoming A&E special, Lie Detector: Truth or Deception, in which she takes a polygraph test to answer questions about the passing.

“I had no choice,” Price says in the episode (per People) when asked about why she chose to take Coleman off life support two days after he suffered an intracranial hemorrhage from a fall that left him in a medically-induced coma. “He had gone into cardiac arrest, and that is ultimately what took his life.”

Price says she spoke with the hospital staff and instructed them to take the Diff’rent Strokes star off life support despite his living will including a request to be kept alive for 15 days before ending treatment.

They called me Thursday morning and said, ‘Does Gary have a DNR [do not resuscitate order]?’” she told host Tony Harris. “And I said, ‘Yeah, resuscitate him.’ I tried. I tried to do everything in my will.”

When Harris asked if she could have given Coleman more time, she said “no,” explaining, “Thursday I go visit him, speak with the doctors, and they are like, ‘Shannon, we do not think that he is going to make it until Friday.’ Meaning his condition is not going to get any better. I made the right decision.”

Price reiterated that there was nothing else she could have done, noting that she “asked the questions” and “saw the condition he was in.”

“I just knew,” she added. “I mean, he was basically already gone. And I said, ‘Okay, are his eyes dilated?’ And they said, ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘Okay, can I see?’ And they showed me, and that’s when I knew.”

Price and Coleman tied the knot in August 2007 and divorced just a year later. However, as Harris explains in the special, the doctors at the hospital “assumed Shannon was still married to Gary when in fact they had been divorced in secret.” Harris also claims Price “presented a document naming her as the decision maker on Gary’s advanced medical directive, giving her the right to make decisions about his end of life treatment and care.”

In the A&E doc, Price admits her divorce was a “mistake,” revealing it was her decision and Coleman did not want to separate. “I was just still at the house. My stuff was there, everything was there, we were still together,” she stated, later adding, “There’s two things I regret: divorcing him, and not being able to save his life.”

There were also questions about Price’s behaviour during the 911 call she made after discovering Coleman after his fall at their Utah home. In the call, Price could be heard refusing to listen to the operator’s instructions.

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Gary Coleman's Ex-Wife Receives Polygraph Test Results Over Involvement in His Death

“As far as rendering aid, I could have helped him a little bit more,” Price confessed while discussing the lie detector test results with polygraph examiner, George Olivo, in the special.

Price was also asked if she physically caused Coleman’s fall, to which the polygraph showed “deception indicated.” She has always maintained she had nothing to do with the fall and has never been charged.

“You say you have nothing to hide. I say you know exactly why you failed this test,” Olivo said. “Sadly, my professional opinion is the truth is not on your side today.”

“And I figured it wouldn’t be,” Price replied, to which Olivo responded, “Because you already knew you were gonna fail, and you know why you did.”

Lie Detector: Truth or Deception, Premieres, Thursday, July 10, 9 pm et, A&E