10 Stars Impacted By Suicide (And Suicide Attempts) Of Loved Ones

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After the shocking loss of designer Kate Spade and Parts Unknown host Anthony Bourdain recently, actress Erika Alexander spoke at an event in Detroit just a few days ago about the topic of suicide prevention. She told the city’s NBC-affiliate WDIV, “It’s been a crisis.”

“A person may be going along their daily routine, and know how to do it. So as long as they’re doing that, people don’t know they’re suffering from a deeper problem,” she said. “It’s good and sad in a way, that we can have this conversation because of all of the new press around Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade. But the truth is, this is long overdue, and needed.”

And this conversation is one that hits close to home for Alexander, as her mother tried to take her own life after dealing with abuse as a young woman.

“My mother was abused very badly when she was growing up. I think it created a well of sadness around her,” she said. “She was able to pull herself out of being a teenager who wanted to commit suicide and tried several times, unsuccessfully.”

She also told ABC-affiliate WXYZ that she felt like her mother’s struggles, not just during adolescence, but with ongoing issues pertaining to mental illness, pushed her to speak out.

“From those experiences in dealing with a family member who deals with depression, I thought I had something to say.”

She’s not alone. A number of stars, unfortunately, have been impacted by the “successful” and “unsuccessful” attempts at suicide by their loved ones, and have been open about the pain those decisions caused. See nine other well-known figures who’ve been affected by suicide.

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Deb Antney

The manager, mother of rapper Waka Flocka Flame and Growing Up Hip-Hop: Atlanta star, lost her son KayO Redd in 2014 to suicide. He was 27.

“He had just left my house and he headed down the street and the next thing I knew was my son was dead,” she said at the time. “My son was a good kid and I never had any problems with him…I just don’t know why he would do such a thing.”

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Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson

The actor recently revealed that he watched his mother try to take her own life when he was a teen.

“My mom tried to check out when I was 15,” he wrote on Instagram. “She got outta the car on Interstate 65 in Nashville and walked into oncoming traffic. Big rigs and cars swerving outta the way not to hit her. I grabbed her and pulled her back on the gravel shoulder of the road. What’s crazy about that suicide attempt is to this day, she has no recollection of it whatsoever. Probably best she doesn’t.”

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Kristoff St. John

The Young and the Restless star lost his son in 2015 after Julian was found dead in his room at his mental health care facility. He was only 24, but had suffered from schizophrenia for years. Kristoff and his ex-wife, Mia, filed a lawsuit against the facility, saying if they had done their regular mandatory check-ins and observations of his son, who needed to be checked on every 15 minutes due to being on suicide watch, he would still be alive.

“It’s every parent’s nightmare,” he said. “That call was the worst call I’ve ever had in my life. I knew that Julian had died.” 

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Cyn Santana

The former reality star lost her brother a few years ago after he took his life. She has been very open, including on social media, about the loss.

“I didn’t express my love for you while you were here and I’m sorry for that,” she wrote in a tribute on Instagram. “I feel guilty.. so I turn to social media to show my love for you.. To show the world that I love you and that I’m sorry this happened to you.. But then I press post and realize this doesn’t mean anything. You’re not coming back. And you left this world without knowing how much I really did love you. But I then realize that this simple post can do something because someone right now is going through what you went through. Someone right now is going to read this and realize suicide is not the answer.. And in your memory I will help those in need. Your story is going to save so many beautiful lives. I wish I could’ve saved you.. But you’re now at peace and we now have an angel. It will always be 6 of us. I love you.”

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Ginuwine

Singer Ginuwine lost his father to suicide in 1999 and then his mother the next year, and according to him, the grief left him wanting to take his own life. He would eventually receive the help he needed, but it wasn’t easy.

“After my father shot himself to death and my mother died from cancer less than a year later, I really didn’t want to be here anymore, I didn’t want to live and tried to commit suicide more than once,” he said. “There was no one around that I really loved at the time, so I turned to the drinking and drugs like weed and ecstasy. I was done mentally and emotionally to the point that I had to go see a psychiatrist, but that didn’t do any good because I wasn’t interested. In fact, the two times I visited him I was high. I was depressed and felt like I had nobody to talk to that could relate to me.”

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Lalah Hathaway

Lalah Hathaway doesn’t speak much on the way her father, iconic singer Donny Hathaway, left this world. Instead, she focuses on the legacy he left behind in a short time.

“It would be hard to be a singer, musician or have ears and not be an admirer of my dad,” she said. “I can only say that now that I’m older, because growing up, I thought I was biased. I thought it was just me. Now I see that he left his mark on the world.”

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Sheryl Underwood

As we previously reported, The Talk co-host Sheryl Underwood opened up on the show about losing her husband to suicide after news of Spade and Bourdain’s deaths.

“I’m kind of emotional about this because, as you know my husband killed himself. And you will never know. For people who think they know, you’ll never know if it’s clinical depression. You’ll never know if it’s financial stress. You’ll never know,” she said. “I’m sad for her daughter for that to be in the note because my husband left a note. And what the note does to the person who’s still alive, it shows that the person who’s no longer alive has now had the final word. There’s nothing you can do about it now. And that pain does not…it doesn’t go away. So I really hope that the family can come together for her daughter because it just doesn’t go away. So for people that need help, they need to get the help that they need. And for those who are left behind, you get help also.”

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Monica

The singer once told Sister2Sister that the pain of losing someone to suicide doesn’t go away. You just learn to cope. That’s what she had to do after an ex-boyfriend, Jarvis Weems, shot himself in front of her.

“Oh, it never just leaves. You just relive it over and over,” she said. “But as I got older, I started to accept that certain things in life I will not be able to change, and if I really, really just spend a lot of time focused on what took place, I won’t be able to get over the next hurdle.”

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Angel Love

The former Basketball Wives star actually lost her first husband to suicide, and spoke about that tragedy with VH1.

“[My guy], we were dating for maybe two years, we got married, then three months later he committed suicide,” she said. “It was so so hard for me to accept it and adjust to life after that because I thought I had everything I needed. I had just finished nursing school, I just got married, I was happy and in love. My life was just amazing but then my life just crashed. I was really at my wit’s end and I didn’t know how to overcome [the grief] and adjust to life again. Prayers and trying to get a strong relationship with god really held me together.”