Robin Williams’ widow is getting candid about the devastating final year of his life.
On Tuesday, Susan Schneider Williams spoke with Today’s Hoda Kotb about the new documentary Robin’s Wish, which details the late actor’s battle with Lewy body dementia: a brain disease that affected his thinking and movement before it led to his death by suicide in August 2014.
Schneider Williams described the Oscar winner as “the greatest love I’ve ever known,” telling the host of her late love:
“This was a man who was incredibly rich and deep and versed in so much about humanity and culture, and his humor was like this secret weapon. There were so many times when he would see someone needed a lift, and then he would just inject a little bit of humor in just the right way to make a difference.”
Even though Lewy body dementia is the second-most common type of progressive dementia after Alzheimer’s disease, doctors misdiagnosed the comedian. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until years after his death that his loved ones got answers on what was going on in his brain.
Video: This Robin Williams Story Might Just Make You Cry!
Susan remembered:
“Robin and I knew there was so much more going on. Robin was right when he said to me, ‘I just want to reboot my brain.’ In that moment, I promised him that we would get to the bottom of this. I just didn’t know that would be after he passed.”
Learning what it was that was haunting her husband was a huge weight off Susan’s shoulders… though it clearly came too late… She said:
“I was relieved it had a name. Robin and I had gone through this experience together, really being chased by an invisible monster. And it was like whack-a-mole with the symptoms. I left there with a name of the disease, the thing that Robin and I had been searching for.”
Susan also shared Robin’s heartbreaking reaction when doctors ordered them to sleep in separate beds so that the actor could get more shut eye amid his struggles with insomnia.
She recalled:
“He said to me, ‘Does this mean we’re separated?’ That was a really shocking moment. When your best friend, your partner, your love — you realize that there’s a giant chasm somewhere, and you can’t see where it is but that’s just not based in reality. That was a hard moment.”
Wow, we could only imagine.
Robin’s Wish — which features interviews with Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy and The Crazy Ones creator David E. Kelley — is now available to rent and own on demand.
Schneider Williams previously explained the title of the doc, telling Entertainment Weekly that her late husband’s “wish” was to “help all of us be less afraid.” She explained:
“We had been discussing what we wanted our legacies to be in life; when it was our time to go, how we wanted to have made people feel. Without missing a beat, Robin said, ‘I want to help people be less afraid.'”
A hero gone way too soon.
[Image via Nikki Nelson/WENN]
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