MARTIN SHORT has spoken out for the first time about the heartbreaking suicide of his daughter Katherine, describing her loss as “a nightmare.”
The 76-year-old actor revealed Katherine, 42, battled severe mental health issues including borderline personality disorder before her tragic death in February.
Short compared Katherine’s struggles to his late wife Nancy Dolman’s fight with cancer, saying: “The understanding (is) that mental health and cancer, like my wife’s, are both diseases, and sometimes with diseases they are terminal.”
He told CBS Sunday Mornings: “My daughter fought for a long time with extreme mental health, borderline personality disorder, other things, and did the best she could until she couldn’t.”
The Father of the Bride star is now backing mental health charity Bringchange2mind, founded by Glenn Close, aiming to bring mental health “out of the shadows.”
Short reflected on the stigma around suicide, calling it “the last stage of an illness” and emphasised the importance of understanding and acceptance.
The actor’s own history of loss runs deep, having lost his brother in a car crash at 12 and both parents to cancer before adulthood.
“What it developed in me was this muscle of survival and handling grief and a perspective on it,” he explained.
Katherine’s death has devastated her brothers Henry and Olivier, as well as Short himself.
She was a licensed clinical social worker with a master’s degree from USC.
Short shared a poignant memory from his late wife’s final days, recalling her last words: “Marty let me go.”
He believes Katherine’s suicide was her own way of saying, “Dad, let me go.”
Adding further heartbreak, Katherine’s biological mother Kristine Sanz revealed she was harassed and forced into hiding years ago after trying to reconnect with her daughter.
Sanz believes Katherine might still be alive if they had been allowed a relationship, saying, “I feel that she wanted to know me. She’d be alive today if I were in her life. I might have been able to maybe help her.”