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Robin Williams’ Widow Offers Insights Into His Suicide

Nov 4, 2015  •  Post A Comment

The widow of Robin Williams, Susan Williams, has opened up about the comedian’s last days, including the devastating disease Lewy body dementia that led to his suicide in August 2014.

Susan Williams said in an exclusive interview with People magazine that her husband had been told by a psychiatrist a few weeks before his death that he would have to be admitted to an inpatient treatment facility. The comedian had been diagnosed — incorrectly, it appears — with Parkinson’s disease back in May 2014.

In July 2014, Robin Williams, 63, had what he called at the time a “miscalculation” in which he bloodied his head on a door in the couple’s home, Susan Williams told People. The injury was minor, but the incident prompted a visit by the couple to the psychiatrist.

Susan Williams told the magazine: “This is when a pivotal moment happened.” She quotes the psychiatrist telling her husband: “It is no longer an option to have inpatient neurocognitive evaluation. This is now mandatory and we need to decide, you need to decide, where you want to go and we’re all going to figure this out.”

“This was not happy news,” Susan adds. “We were scared. We were all really scared. We didn’t know what we were fighting.”

People reports: “After the meeting with the psychiatrist, Susan remembers seeing an immediate shift in her husband of nearly two years. She tells People that a feeling of melancholy settled into Robin, who was still upset about his seemingly inexplicable ‘miscalculation’ with the door earlier in the day.”

The diagnosis of Lewy body dementia, which causes a range of symptoms including disorientation and hallucinations, did not surface until an autopsy was performed in the days after Williams’ death. The comedian had reportedly also been suffering from depression, anxiety and increasing paranoia.

The full interview with Susan Williams will be published in the upcoming issue of People, which goes on sale Friday.

2 Comments

  1. Why not just say that he relapsed? Not that it is anyone’s business. His television show was canceled by CBS which was probably a huge blow to his self-esteem and ego…. I am a counselor and deal with this on a daily basis. A great man, but still a man was he; vulnerable, human and recovering…

  2. Having known Robin back in his Mork days, when I first heard of his suicide, I was stunned and couldn’t imagine why such a happy, funny and completely brilliant man would take his own life. Only later, when I learned about his dementia, did I understand that a man of his formidable mental capacity would not want to live watching himself deteriorate due to a debilitating, severe and uncurable illness.

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