Gary Coleman’s ex-wife’s lie detector test results raise questions about actor’s fatal fall

Gary Coleman’s ex-wife, Shannon Price, failed a lie detector test about the role she played in the former child star’s 2010 death, further fueling years of speculation that she murdered him.

Price was asked on A&E’s “Lie Detector: Truth or Deception” series, “Did you physically cause Gary’s [fatal] fall?,” to which she answered “no” and she was also asked, “Did you physically cause Gary to fall that day?” and she again replied “no.”

“The results are you failed that exam with deception indicated to those relevant questions,” the test administrator revealed in a sneak peek clip from the show. “You failed the exam regarding Gary’s fall.”

Price, 39, then called the test results “false,” maintaining her innocence.

However, the test administrator insisted that she had not been “completely honest” with him during the polygraph test and said he was “certain” that there was “more to this story that hasn’t been told.”

According to Psychology Today, lie detector tests are approximately 87 percent accurate.

Price secretly wed Coleman in 2007. The actor — who battled a congenital kidney disease that made him appear younger than he was and stunted his growth — revealed the following year that his marriage was the first romantic and sexual relationship he ever had in his life.

“I never got the opportunity to be romantic or feel romantic with anyone,” he told “Inside Edition” in February 2008. “I don’t have issues with age, I have issues with intelligence. She’s more intelligent than I am, and that’s what matters to me.”

Price hinted at their marriage woes, though, telling the TV show, “He lets his anger conquer him sometimes. He throws things around, and sometimes he throws it in my direction.”

The couple legally split by August 2008, but Price was at Coleman’s home when the “Diff’rent Strokes” alum suffered a bad fall that led to him being hospitalized in critical condition.

The “Divorce Court” alum was overheard on a 911 call at the time saying that she found him in a pool of blood. “I’m gagging. I’ve got blood on myself. I can’t deal,” she said over the phone.

The actress also claimed in the recording, “I really don’t know what happened” and told the dispatcher she couldn’t drive Coleman to the hospital because she was sick and could suffer a seizure.

The beloved former child actor — who coined the popular phrase “What you talkin’ about, Willis?” — had a brain hemorrhage and died two days later at age 42 after Price took him off life support.

It was revealed shortly after his death that Coleman had filed a restraining order against his ex-wife, whom he had divorced in 2008.

He claimed via court docs obtained by RadarOnline that Price had “shown a tendency to damage, destroy and steal [his] property.” Coleman further claimed, “I believe she will continue to do so in my absence and while she is trespassing in my home.”

The restraining order was granted on Feb. 19, 2010 — three months before the “Gary Coleman Show” alum died — but he reportedly failed to properly issue his ex-wife the documentation.

Price has said of the allegations in Peacock’s “Gary” in 2024, “The fact that people come out and say, ‘She murdered Gary. She pushed him down the stairs.’ That really hurt me.”

She added, “The decision to take him off life support was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”

Coleman left his estate to his ex-girlfriend Anna Gray, the chief executive of his company, but Price tried to leverage an alleged handwritten will to fight her over it. However, a judge ruled in Gray’s favor.