Kristoff St. John Confessed ‘Horror' Over Son's Suicide Before His Own Death
Feb. 5 2019, Updated 2:16 p.m. ET
Soap star Kristoff St. John was so devastated by his son’s suicide that it may have resulted in his own downward spiral and death.
“We were very close,” the Young and the Restless actor told Soap Opera Digest in a 2015 interview about his “shy and at times introverted” boy, Julian.
According to the insider, Julian's suicide at age 24 in 2014 may have been a major factor contributing to the actor’s troubled state of mind.
“When his son died, he died. He was never the same,” said the source. “He wishes it would have been him.”
Tragically, as RadarOnline.com reported, the 52-year-old soap star was found dead in his Woodland Hills, Calif. home on Sunday, Feb. 3, and an insider revealed St. John had grown “aloof” and “withdrawn” and was drinking heavily before his passing.
In the Soap Opera Digest interview, St. John had revealed his son Julian’s “real issues started occurring” around seventh grade. “He started acting very strangely with everyone. He wore black clothes, not that black clothes mean you’re a strange person, it’s just that he had never done that before,” he said.
Julian was around 19 when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but he grew “extremely defiant” about taking his medication.
Consequently, Julian “became very much his old self: depressed, isolated, not being hygienic, not taking good care of himself,” St. John said. “He was hearing voices and speaking to those voices.”
Julian eventually did multiple stints at various rehabs, sober homes and mental health facilities before he became homeless, began living in parks and eventually got addicted to crystal meth.
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“I never thought my son would be the kid at the gas station with the gas can trying to get a couple of dollars out of somebody for a bogus story…” said St. John.
Staff at the last facility the troubled young man was placed in put him on suicide watch, but he managed to kill himself in his room in November 2014 — just days shy of his birthday.
“There was horror, there was shock, there were a lot of tears and to be honest with you, there was also a bit of relief,” said St. John not long after.
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