Susan Williams, Robin Williams’ widow, is speaking out for the first time following Robin’s tragic passing by his own hand last year. In an exclusive interview airing earlier today on Good Morning America, Susan spoke to ABC News’ Amy Robach and laid out the actor’s worsening condition and his final words.
Susan and Robin were together for seven years and married for three.
“If Robin was lucky, he would've had maybe three years left. And they would've been hard years. And it's a good chance he would've been locked up,” Susan said when asked about Robin’s medical diagnosis.
Susan wept as she spoke of Robin “just disintegrating” as he suffered from Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia, the second-most-common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s. She fell into tears as she talked about the last time she talked to Robin, on the night of August 10, 2014.
Robin offered his wife a foot massage. She demurred.
“And I said, ‘It's OK, honey. Not — you know, it's OK. You don't have to tonight.’ And I'll never forget the look in his eyes of just, sad because he wanted to. And I wished — you know?” she said. “Then he came back in the room a couple of times. Once to his closet. And he said — and then he laughed. And he said, ‘Goodnight, my love.’ And I said, ‘Goodnight, my love.’"
Robin came back to grab his iPad, giving Susan optimism about his condition that night.
“And I thought, ‘This is good,’” she said. “And then he said, ‘Goodnight. Goodnight.’ That was the last.”
After Robin’s assistant failed to rouse him, the police were called and Susan rushed home.
“That 20-minute car ride, I just screamed the whole way, ‘Robin!’” she said.
She initially struggled to see her husband as emergency responders fought to save his life.
“And I just wanted to see my husband. And I got to see him... and I got to pray with him. And I got to tell him, ‘I forgive you 50 billion percent, with all my heart. You're the bravest man I've ever known.’ You know, we were living a nightmare,” she said.
Susan said that she understood her husband’s decision to take his own life.
“And so now, over a year later I totally get it. I get it, honey. I totally get it. I don't think he was trying to hit his head on the door. I know that's right. And I know he was angry with himself and he was fed up with this and he was expressing anger.”
Williams went on to talk about how her husband's condition would fluctuate from moment to moment.
“It's one minute, totally lucid… And then five minutes later, he would say something that wasn't — it didn't match,” she said.
Robin maintained his composure to the best of his abilities.
“But the last month he could not. It was like the dam broke,” she said.
Susan said that the week before he took his own life, doctors were looking into sending him to a facility for neurocognitive tests.
Robach queried Susan if she thought that Robin’s decision to end his life was a means of regaining control.
“In my opinion, oh, yeah,” she said. “I mean, there are many reasons. Believe me. I've thought about this. Of what was going on in his mind, what made him ultimately commit — you know, to do that act. And I think he was just saying, ‘No.’ And I don't blame him one bit. I don't blame him one bit.”