Since Robin Williams died in 2014, his widow Susan Schneider has made it her life’s mission to educate the public about the devastating brain disease he had.
Since Robin Williams died in 2014, his widow Susan Schneider has made it her life’s mission to educate the public about the devastating brain disease he had.
In 2014, Williams shocked the world — and Schneider — when he died by suicide in their California home. Though Schneider had been by Williams’ side as he battled various health problems in the preceding months, things seemed normal on his last day alive. Schneider had no worries about her husband’s safety when they told each other goodnight on August 10, 2014.
But tragically, Robin Williams was found dead the next morning, August 11th, at the age of 63. The beloved actor and comedian had died by suicide.
After his death, Williams’ autopsy revealed that he’d suffered from an undiagnosed brain disease called Lewy body dementia (LBD). Schneider then made it her mission to educate the public about the devastating disease — and she became her late husband’s biggest champion.
“You Found Me”: How Susan Schneider Met Robin Williams
“I walked in and saw this man and I thought: ‘I think that’s Robin Williams,’” she told The Guardian in 2021. “Then, on my way out, I happened to look at him again and he was smiling at me and something inside me said: ‘Oh, just go over and say hi.’ He was wearing camouflage print, so I said: ‘How’s that camo working out for you?’ And he said: ‘Not too good — you found me.’”
Schneider later told PEOPLE that their connection was “this instant familiarity and comfort” and that they met “right on time.” By the next year after they met, they had fallen in love — and Schneider was sure she wanted to be with Williams forever. Shortly thereafter, he proposed.
“He came into the bedroom and he got down on one knee and he said, ‘Will you be Mrs. Robin Williams?’ And I said, ‘With all my heart, yes. With all my heart,’” Schneider told PEOPLE about the joyous experience.
On October 22, 2011, Susan Schneider and Robin Williams got married in Napa Valley, California. They moved into a house in Tiburon’s Paradise Cay in California with Schneider’s two sons and began to build their life together.
But just a couple of years later, Robin Williams began to suffer from a myriad of alarming physical and mental health problems.
The Difficult Months Leading Up To Robin Williams’ Suicide
According to the book Robin by Dave Itzkoff, Robin Williams’ health began to suffer in October 2013. His symptoms ranged from indigestion to tremors in his left arm to vision problems to a stooped posture. And the more symptoms that popped up, the more anxious Williams became.
“It was like this endless parade of symptoms, and not all of them would raise their head at once,” Susan Schneider later recalled to Itzkoff. “It was like playing whack-a-mole. Which symptom is it this month? I thought, is my husband a hypochondriac? We’re chasing it and there’s no answers.”
Williams confessed to his worried wife that he felt like he was “losing his mind” and that he needed a “reboot for his brain.”
Then, in May 2014, Williams was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. But Williams didn’t seem to feel satisfied with the diagnosis. And as the months passed, Williams’ symptoms seemed to get even worse.
He had trouble sleeping at night and suffered from relentless paranoid thoughts. On the night before he died, Williams felt so anxious about his watches being stolen that he stuffed them into a sock, drove to his assistant’s house, and dropped the watches off for safekeeping.
Despite this, Schneider soon felt optimistic. She and her husband spent a “perfect day” together, according to an interview she later gave on Good Morning America, and Williams seemed affectionate as usual as they got ready for bed. He offered to give Schneider a foot massage, and then they exchanged their normal nightly salutation of “Goodnight, my love.” Williams went to his bedroom with his iPad, which Schneider took as another good sign because she hadn’t seen him read or watch TV in months.
“He seemed like he was doing better, like he was on the path of something,” she said. “I’m thinking, ‘O.K., stuff is working… he’s getting sleep.’”
