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He has been struggling with depression and addiction for a long time. These kind of mental issues seem all too common amongst comedians.

• marco1 12y ago
  Can you elaborate on the issue with comedians?
  • neurotech1 12y ago
    A large number of comedians are depressed in real life, away from audiences and cameras. I met a relatively famous comedian and he was quite depressed, and definitely not the only one. RIP Robin Williams
    • bashinator 12y ago
      I've got a lot of respect for Maria Bamford for being so open about it. Also, she's funny as hell. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/magazine/the-weird-scary-and-ingenious-brain-of-maria-bamford.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/magazine/the-weird-scary-a...
  • bennesvig 12y ago
    In this video a comedian talks about how he dealt with his daughter having cancer while appearing on the Tonight Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdBJ1X33rXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdBJ1X33rXM A lot of comedy comes from pain. I think Peter McGraw's benign violation theory partially explains this. According to McGraw's theory, humor comes from a "violation" or something negative that is made benign. Comedians learn to take the negative and transform it into something humorous. People also say that many comedians have a more realistic view of the harshness of life. This reminds me of the quote from GK Chesterton, “Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?"