Robin Williams, the beloved comedian and actor, took his own life in August 2014, leaving the world in shock and mourning.
For years, many attributed his suicide to depression, but his widow, Susan Schneider Williams, is now shedding light on the true cause of his death: Lewy body dementia (LBD).
In a recent interview, Schneider Williams revealed that depression was just one of numerous symptoms Williams experienced in the months leading up to his death.
“Depression was one of, let’s call it, fifty symptoms, and it was a small one,” she explained.
The real culprit, she said, was the debilitating brain disease LBD. LBD is a form of dementia that is frequently misdiagnosed.
It is the second most common neurodegenerative dementia after Alzheimer’s and causes fluctuations in mental status, hallucinations, and impairment of motor function.
According to Schneider Williams, the disease began to take hold of her husband in the last year before his death, with symptoms rapidly worsening in his final months.
She recounted how Williams was “just disintegrating” physically and mentally, struggling with stiffness, slumping gait, and confusion.
In one incident, a “miscalculation” with a door left him with a self-inflicted head wound.
Schneider Williams emphasized that her husband was acutely aware that he was losing his mind but tried to hold it together until he reached a breaking point.
It wasn’t until after Williams’ death that an autopsy confirmed he had LBD.
Had he lived, doctors estimated he may have had only three difficult years left.
“If Robin was lucky, he would’ve had maybe three years left,” Schneider Williams said. “And they would’ve been hard years.”
Throughout their seven-year marriage, Schneider Williams witnessed the endless parade of symptoms that plagued her husband.
“It was like playing Whack-a-Mole. Which symptom is it this month?” she recalled.
The couple tried everything to find answers, but to no avail.
Despite being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease three months before his death, it was the undiagnosed LBD that truly led Williams to take his own life, according to Schneider Williams.
“Lewy Body Dementia killed Robin,” she stated definitively.
In the wake of her husband’s death, Schneider Williams has spent the last year trying to understand what happened.
Doctors told her that Williams was keenly aware he was losing his mind, but there was nothing he could do about it.
She believes his suicide was a way for him to regain control.
Reflecting on their relationship, Schneider Williams described it as “the best love I ever dreamed of.”
She cherishes the memory of her husband not just as an actor, but as a human being.
“My favorite movie of Robin Williams was Robin Williams being a human being, not an actor—the best movie in the world,” she said.
