Robin Williams' Wife Talks Suicide: Says It Was Not Depression That Made ActorTake His Own Life [VIDEO]
It's been more than a year since beloved comedian Robin Williams tragically took his own life, and fans around the world are still reeling from the devastating loss. But perhaps no one more so than the actor's family, particularly as his wife, Susan Schneider Williams, speaks out for the first time following Williams' unexpected death.
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In a series of interviews with both People magazine and ABC News, Susan Williams claims that what many people believe drove the academy-award winning actor to commit suicide is wrong.
"It was not depression that killed Robin," the actor's wife tells People. "Depression was one of let's call it 50 symptoms and it was a small one."
Instead, she claims it was Lewy body dementia, which Robins was diagnosed with after his death, that led him to kill himself last summer. It's a degenerative brain disease that, according to the magazine, "causes fluctuations in mental status, hallucinations and impairment of motor functioning."
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"Lewy body dementia killed Robin. It's what took his life," she told ABC. "And that's what I've spent the past year trying to get to the bottom of: What took my husband's life."
It was a disease that took an enormous toll on the actor, his wife says, recalling one incident prior to his suicide in which the actor had a "miscalculation" with a bathroom door and was mopping up blood after hitting his head.
"He was keeping it together the best that he could, but in the last month he could not," she recalls. "It was like the dam broke."
Susan Schneider Williams had been at odds with the actor's three grown children children over her late husband's estate, eventually reaching a settlement in October 2015.
