Robin Williams was famous for his humor, improvisational skills, and surprising depth on-screen, which
brought smiles to the faces of film-goers everywhere. But his off-screen life was sadly
much more complicated. These are the demons Williams struggled with over the course of
his challenging life.
Born in Chicago in 1951 and later raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Robin Williams
didn't have a typically happy childhood. The comedian was partly raised by nannies and
members of his household's staff, and struggled to connect with his parents due to their rigorous
travel schedules.
Speaking about his upbringing, he told People in 2009,
"The ideal child was seen, not heard."
Williams later described how, as a lonely child, he finally connected to his mother
through comedy.
He said in Dave Itzkoff's 2018 biography, Robin,
"I tried to find things to make her laugh, doing voices or anything that would get a
response out of her."
That same year, the HBO documentary Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, featured footage
of Williams recalling seeing his normally stoic father laughing while watching The Tonight
Show with Jonathan Winters, and realizing that telling jokes could help him grow closer
to his father too.
Williams recalled,
"My dad was a sweet man but not an easy laugh. My dad lost it, and I went, 'Who is this guy
who made [my] father laugh?'"
Williams expanded on his relationship with his parents during his 2001 interview on Inside
the Actor's Studio, saying of his mother,
"She was kind of really part of my whole comedy upbringing."
He said his father rented a massive home, adding,
"I kind of just had myself to play with."
Robin Williams openly admitted throughout his career that cocaine was a dangerous vice
for him, revealing in Dave Itzkoff's Robin how the drug was part of his life from his
early years in comedy. He said in the book,
"They give it to you for free. Everyone will pump you up if you're ready, because it also
gives them some control over you."
The 2018 biography also detailed how cocaine became part of the actor's regular routine
during his Mork & Mindy days. Describing the drug as a way to pull back from people, Williams
explained,
"I did cocaine so I wouldn't have to talk to anybody."
Williams was also reportedly present during the deadly cocaine binge that took the life
of fellow comedian John Belushi Belushi in 1982. Shortly after, Williams quit the drug
ahead of his son Zak's birth the following year. Williams told People in 1988,
"The Belushi tragedy was frightening. [...] His death scared a whole group of show business
people. It caused a big exodus from drugs. And for me there was the baby coming. I knew
I couldn't be a father and live that sort of life."
Similarly to his cocaine use, Robin Williams dealt with an addiction to alcohol, and quit
drinking when Zak was born in the early '80s. He would relapse on several occasions, but
Williams stayed sober for nearly 20 years, before falling back into drinking in 2003
while filming in Alaska.
He told The Guardian in 2010,
"I was in a small town [...] and then I thought: drinking. I just thought, hey, maybe drinking
will help. Because I felt alone and afraid, [...] and it was the worst thing in the world.
You feel warm and kind of wonderful. And then the next thing you know, it's a problem, and
you're isolated."
Following his relapse, Williams went to rehab in 2006 after a family intervention. Speaking
about his father's struggles with alcohol, Zak Williams told The New York Times in 2009
how confident he was that if his father had continued drinking, it would have caused his
death.
"I was an alcoholic, a drunk."
Shortly before his death in August 2014, Williams went back to a rehab facility to maintain
his sobriety, with his representative telling HuffPost that July,
"After working back-to-back projects, Robin is simply taking the opportunity to fine-tune
and focus on his continued commitment, of which he remains extremely proud."
"What happens in rehab?" "What happens? You dry out."
Robin Williams' skyrocketing fame in the '70s and '80s made him a hot romantic commodity,
which eventually doomed his first marriage to Valerie Velardi. In a People article written
in 1988, the year Williams and Velardi separated, the actor described the turmoil he felt about
his infidelities, saying,
"For many years, I was addicted to women, as if to a drug. That's over now. But looking
back, I find it humiliating. Degrading. I'm ashamed."
Velardi, the mother of their son, Zak, told People,
"Very attractive women throw themselves at men in his position. You'd have to be a saint
to resist. Besides, neither of us was prepared for the sudden life shift. But I admit the
other women were harder to take after I'd had a child."
In 1989, Williams' divorce from Velardi was finalized, and that same year, he married
Marsha Garces, his nanny-turned-mistress-turned-second wife.
Velardi said in the HBO documentary about Williams that the press ran wild with a story
about Williams running away with his child's nanny, but it wasn't true. She said that Williams
and Garces got together after she and Williams divorced.
"Because I don't talk to the press, um, I — They got skewered, and I was sorry for
that."
Williams and Garces welcomed son Cody and daughter Zelda together before splitting in
2008. The comedian's third marriage to Susan Schneider came in 2011. The two were still
together when Williams died in 2014.
Robin Williams appeared in many films in the last two decades of his life — but a good
number of them were critically-panned. Williams reportedly kept up his strenuous professional
pace to alleviate money woes.
In a 2014 report following Williams' death, sources cited by Radar claimed that the actor
had accepted film and TV roles that he didn't enjoy doing solely for the paycheck, including
a since-axed sequel to his beloved film, Mrs. Doubtfire.
"Daniel, hi." "Could you make me a woman?"
In a 2013 interview with Parade, Williams opened up about his financial troubles. Speaking
about his decision to return to TV in the CBS sitcom, The Crazy Ones, he said,
"The idea of having a steady job [was] appealing. There are bills to pay. My life has downsized,
in a good way. I'm selling the ranch up in Napa. I just can't afford it anymore."
"I'm back."
When asked whether he was bankrupted by his two divorces, he admitted that he lost money
over the years, saying,
"Divorce is expensive. I used to joke they were going to call it 'all the money,' but
they changed it to 'alimony.' It's ripping your heart out through your wallet. Are things
good with my exes? Yes. But do I need that lifestyle? No."
According to his representatives, Robin Williams was struggling with severe depression when
he died in 2014. However, the actor had struggled with depression for decades.
Williams described his challenges in a 2007 interview captured by CNN. He said in the
interview,
"No, I'm not always fun to be around. And that there is this thing of, yeah, the world
sees one thing, and what am I like at home?"
"The world sees one thing, and what am I like at home? Different, because I can't always
be on."
Friend and comedian Eric Idle revealed to Entertainment Weekly how he tried to set up
a guest appearance from Williams during the final Monty Python reunion show in 2013, a
period during which Williams was struggling. Idle explained,
"He said he could come, but he didn't want to be onstage. I said, 'I totally get that.'
Because he was suffering from severe depression. [...] In the end he said, 'I can't come, I'm
sorry, but I love you very much.' We realized afterwards he was saying goodbye."
After Williams' 2014 death, his wife, Susan Schneider Williams, confirmed to People that
Williams was indeed struggling with depression at the time of his passing. However, she added,
"It was not depression that killed Robin. Depression was one of let's call it 50 symptoms
and it was a small one."
Following Robin Williams' death in 2014, more information emerged about the extreme mental
decline he experienced in the final months of his life. One of the actor's last on-screen
roles was that year's Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb.
"It's time for your next adventure."
The film's crew revealed harrowing details of Williams' anguish on set, as he battled
mysterious ailments, which doctors at the time believed were linked to Parkinson's disease.
Cheri Minns, a makeup artist for the film, claimed in Robin,
"He was sobbing in my arms at the end of every day. It was horrible. Horrible. But I just
didn't know. [...] I said to his people, 'I'm a makeup artist — I don't have this capacity
to deal with what's happening to him.'"
Williams' wife, Susan, described his challenges in a 2016 essay about his final months for
Neurology. She wrote,
"During the filming of the movie, Robin was having trouble remembering even one line for
his scenes. While just 3 years prior he had played in a full 5-month season of the Broadway
production Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, often doing two shows a day with hundreds
of lines — and not one mistake."
"I followed a scent, I took a bite, and then, 'fwip!' A tranquilizer dart comes from out
of nowhere, and I wake up in Baghdad."
Schneider Williams added,
"This loss of memory and inability to control his anxiety was devastating to him. [...] Robin
was losing his mind and he was aware of it. Can you imagine the pain he felt as he experienced
himself disintegrating?"
The entertainment world was left in shock when Robin Williams was found dead in his
home in Tiburon, California on August 11, 2014.
"People around this country and for that matter around the world are reacting tonight to the
terrible news of the death of Robin Williams."
Susan Schneider Williams said in a statement,
"This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most
beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken."
"That 20 minute car ride, I just screamed the whole way. 'Robin.'"
Williams' daughter, Zelda, also publicly mourned her father's death, writing in a since-deleted
tweet,
"I love you. I miss you. I'll try to keep looking up."
As news of Williams' death circulated, his famous friends flooded the Internet with stories
of his kindness, with many surprised to learn that he had been sick or suffering. When Schneider
Williams later revealed that Williams was believed to be struggling with anxiety, depression,
and a recent Parkinson's disease diagnosis at the time of his death, fellow actor Michael
J. Fox — who has publicly battled Parkinson's for decades — expressed his surprise and
grief on Twitter.
Fox said that Williams had supported his organization for Parkinson's research, tweeting,
"Stunned to learn Robin had PD. Pretty sure his support for our [foundation] predated
his diagnosis. A true friend; I wish him peace."
In yet another stunning and sad discovery three months following Robin Williams' death,
a November 2014 coroner's report revealed that he had actually been suffering from Lewy
body dementia. According to the Lewy Body Journal, this is a progressive dementia that
comprises Parkinson's disease-like physical symptoms, as well as a serious decline in
cognitive abilities.
Susan Schneider Williams wrote in her essay for Neuorology,
"[The doctors'] reactions were all the same: that Robin's was one of the worst LBD pathologies
they had seen and that there was nothing else anyone could have done."
Noting that her late husband had been diagnosed with Parkinson's in May 2014, she added,
"We had an answer, [...] but somehow I knew Robin was not buying it. [...] It is apparent
to me now that he was most likely keeping the depth of his symptoms to himself."
"It was like playing whack-a-mole. Which symptom is it this month?"
Tragically, even if Williams had been correctly diagnosed with LBD while he was alive, it
would have almost certainly claimed him in the end. He had died by suicide, Schneider
Williams continued, following the disease's intense and confusing progression.
She added,
"Even if we experienced some level of comfort in knowing the name [of the disease], and
fleeting hope from temporary comfort with medications, the terrorist was still going
to kill him. There is no cure and Robin's steep and rapid decline was assured."
"Lewy body dementia is a devastating illness. Increases anxiety, self doubt. Causes delusions."
In 2020, Schneider Williams participated in the Robin's Wish documentary to clarify what
she called the many misunderstandings surrounding her late husband's untimely death.
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.