Robin Williams’ Widow Reveals The Real Reason Behind The Actor’s Suicide

Nov 4, 2015

More than a year has passed since Robin Williams unexpectedly took his own life. His widow and third wife Susan Schneider has finally broken her silence on the real reason behind her husband’s suicide.

Schneider has shared with the world that it actually wasn’t depression that led to Williams’ untimely passing while the cause did lie in his brain.

“It was what was going on inside of his brain—the chemical warfare that no one knew about,” she told Good Morning America’s Amy Robach.

Susan Schneider went on to add that the beloved actor started exhibiting signs of “mental disarray” long before his death. In addition, Williams was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia in an autopsy done in August 2014 following his suicide.

“In November of 2013, he had a little gut pain. Next month, it was another symptom. It was like this endless parade of symptoms and not all of them would raise their head at once. It was like playing Whack-a-Mole. Which symptom is it this month?” Schneider recollected. “I thought, ‘Is my husband a hypochondriac?’ We’re chasing it and there’s no answer. By now we tried everything.”

Williams was diagnosed with early stages of Parkinson’s disease but Schneider believes his undiagnosed mental illness is what truly led to his death.

“Lewy Body Dementia killed Robin,” she said definitively. “It’s what took his life and that’s what I’ve spent the last year trying to get to the bottom of.”

Schneider also reminisced about the love she shared with Williams:

“It’s the best love I ever dreamed of. You know, its what I always dreamed a love would be,” she said, later adding, “My favorite movie of Robin Williams was Robin Williams being a human being, not an actor—the best movie in the world.”