Late night talk show host David Letterman is famous for his witty, dry sense of humor. The entertainer is now admitting that he has faced some very dark periods in his life.
In a candid CBS interview with Charlie Rose, Letterman opened up about his longtime battle with debilitating bouts of depression.
The 65-year-old struggled with the prospect of relying on prescription drugs to feel better. He told Rose he was “always skeptical” about taking medication because he thought “it would make me loopy or make me hallucinate or make me drowsy.”
The ‘Late Night’ host told of a shingles outbreak that became a nightmare experience: “Part of the concoction of drugs they give you to fight that pain is pretty serious, and I just got tired of taking them.” He stopped abruptly and experienced extreme nervous anxiety on top of his depression and was a mess.
Unable to take it anymore, he contacted his friend, Dr. Louis Aronne, to get help. He told the physician, ‘OK, OK, I’ll try anything just to get rid of this depression.”
Letterman revealed, “It’s different than, ‘Oh, I don’t feel good today.’ It’s different than feeling sad. It’s different than feeling blue. It’s really, like a friend of mine says, it’s the world with 20/20 vision.”
Letterman wed his longtime partner Regina Lasko in a courthouse civil ceremony in 2009. They have a 9-year-old son Harry.
He’ll next appear in a candid sit down session with Oprah that will air Jan. 6 on OWN.
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