Inside Joan Rivers' Private Pain: Late Actress 'Seriously Thought About Suicide' After Husband's Death
Joan Rivers died at 81.
Sept. 3 2026, Published 4:31 p.m. ET
Joan Rivers had a long and successful Hollywood career, but she once considered taking her own life as she battled grief following her husband's suicide and the loss of her late-night talk show.
Ahead of the 12th anniversary of her death, RadarOnline.com revisits a dark time in the legendary comedian's life and how she came through it.
'Her Career Was Ruined'
Joan Rivers' husband died by suicide in 1987.
Leslie Bennetts, who wrote Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Loves, Losses and Liberation of Joan Rivers, claimed the "only time (Rivers) seriously thought about committing suicide was the terrible period after her husband killed himself."
In 1987, Rivers was fired from her gig at The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers on Fox. That same year, her husband, Edgar Rosenberg, who previously struggled with depression, died in a hotel room after taking an overdose of Valium.
"Her career was ruined, she was deeply in debt, and she felt she had nothing to live for," Bennetts said in a resurfaced interview. "And yet she went on to make an extraordinary comeback and build a billion-dollar business in her 60s and 70s."
Joan Rivers Opens Up on Mental Health in Final Interview
Joan Rivers said she felt like a 'non-person' in her darkest time.
Joan herself also spoke out about the difficult time in her life when she considered death in what ended up being her final interview.
During a 2014 sit-down with The Daily Beast's Tim Teeman, she claimed her daughter, Melissa, was not talking to her at that time, and she was also struggling with a downward turn in her career.
"My career was in the toilet, I’d lost my Vegas contracts, I’d been fired from Fox," she explained at the time. "Carson and NBC had put out such bad publicity about me. I was a pariah. I wasn’t invited anywhere. I was a non-person. At one point I thought, 'What’s the point? This is stupid.'"
Joan Rivers 'Saved' by a Furry Friend
Joan Rivers' dog interrupted her thoughts of suicide.
However, she claimed she was "saved" when her dog "jumped" into her lap and reminded her of what she had to live for.
"I thought, 'No one will take care of him.' It wasn’t a friendly dog – only to me. I adored this dog," she continued. "He was theoretically a Yorkie, his mother cheated. His name was Spike. He was the way you want your dog to be, devoted only to you."
Joan Rivers Spoke Out on Suicide Prevention
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Joan Rivers became a suicide prevention advocate.
"I was sitting in this big empty house in Bel Air, with a phone with five extensions which we no longer needed. I had the gun in my lap, and the dog sat on the gun," she recalled of the life-altering moment.
She went on to become a suicide prevention advocate.
"I lecture on suicide because things turn around," Rivers added. "I tell people, 'This is a horrible, awful, dark moment, but it will change, and you must know it’s going to change and you push forward.' I look back and think, 'Life is great; life goes on. It changes.'"
