Why Robin Williams’ Widow Found The Media’s Coverage Of His Passing ‘Devastating’
Robin's spouse has some legitimate concerns about the way her husband's death was handled.
At the end of each year, lots of websites and magazines publish articles about all of the celebrities who lost their lives over the last twelve months. In fact, so many stars pass away each year that it is common for websites to publish articles about stars who’ve met their demise halfway through the year. Of course, when stars pass away, their fans will be saddened. However, people tend to move on quickly after most celebrities meet their demise. On the other hand, when the world learned that Robin Williams no longer was among the living, many people couldn’t believe it.
Considering that it was hard for strangers to accept Robin Williams passing since he was so full of life, the sorrow his loved ones must have felt is difficult to think of. On the bright side, when Williams’ son posts about his legendary father on social media, he writes about celebrating his father’s legacy. Of course, remaining positive in a brief social media posting is a lot easier than moving on in real life. After all, there is no doubt that Williams’ widow found many aspects of her husband’s demise hard to cope with including the media coverage which she once called “devastating”.
Susan Schneider Williams Talks About Robin Williams’ Mental State Prior To His Passing
In January of 2021, Susan Schneider Williams talked to a reporter for The Guardian about her late-husband Robin’s passing. In the opening paragraphs of the resulting article, the writer quotes what Robin once said when he was asked about his greatest fear. “I guess I fear my consciousness becoming, not just dull, but a rock. I couldn’t spark.”
Sadly, Robin’s greatest fear became a reality as his autopsy revealed that he was suffering from “severe Lewy body dementia”. For anyone unaware of what that means, people who suffer from LBD “tend to experience, among other things, anxiety, memory loss, hallucinations and insomnia, and these symptoms are generally accompanied or followed by Parkinson’s symptoms “. As Susan told the Guardian reporter, it wasn’t shocking at all when she was informed about the autopsy’s findings.
“The doctors said to me after the autopsy: ‘Are you surprised that your husband had Lewy bodies throughout his entire brain and brain stem?’ I didn’t even know what Lewy bodies were, but I said: ‘No, I’m not surprised.’ The fact that something had infiltrated every part of my husband’s brain? That made perfect sense.”
No matter how much the masses loved Robin Williams’ best movies, his standup comedy, and his talk show appearances, they never got to know what he was like with the cameras were off. Instead, the only way fans can begin to understand what was going on in Robin’s mind when he took his own life is to depend on the recollection of the people who were close to him. With that in mind, it is very powerful to learn that Robin’s widow wasn’t surprised that something had infected every part of the legendary star’s brain.
When she was interviewed for the 2020 documentary Robin’s Wish, Susan Schneider Williams spoke about her perspective on why her husband took his own life. “Robin’s suicide was really a consequence of brain disease; his brain was so compromised. I look at it like, Robin wanted to end the disease – he just didn’t realize that meant he would end, too.”
Susan Schneider Williams Couldn’t Stand The Coverage Of Robin Williams’ Passing
If Robin Williams had passed away from natural causes, that would have been hard enough for the masses to understand since he always seemed so full of life. Worse yet, when the world learned that Robin was gone after taking his own life, that was so shocking that it seemed unfathomable for a lot of people. Of course, in reality, a lot of people who suffer from depression put up a front in public so people should know better than to assume they understand what anyone else is feeling. Still, when Robin passed away, there were millions of people who had one question they were desperate to have answered, why?
In an ideal world, the media would go to great lengths to only cover things that are known to be true. On top of that, the media should be especially careful about what it reports following a tragic event like someone’s life coming to an end. Instead, since so many people wanted to learn what led to Robin Williams’ passing, many members of the media began to report on every rumor. Unsurprisingly, that fact led to a lot of misinformation about Robin’s final years and passing winding up in the press. On top of that, Robin’s widow also was demonized by some in the press.
"Nearly every region of his brain was under attack," said Susan Schneider Williams, the widow of Robin Williams, in a new documentary about the late comedian's final days before he died by suicide in 2014. "He experienced himself disintegrating." https://t.co/VOED5tcnku— CNN (@CNN) September 7, 2020
In the aforementioned 2020 documentary Robin’s Wish, Susan Schneider Williams said that the media’s coverage of Robin William’s passing “was pretty devastating” for her. From there, Susan went on to explain how she coped with the reports in the press. “I just blocked it out as best I could because I had to deal with things that were far more important in the moment. And that was getting to the bottom of what Robin and I had just gone through.”
