Robin Williams’ widow Susan Schneider on the ‘invisible monster’ Lewy body dementia that killed hiim

On Tuesday, the late great Robin Williams’ widow Susan Schneider discussed the ‘invisible monster’ that caused him to take his life by suicide, at age 63, six years ago.

The legendary comedian – who was a Tony away from elite EGOT status – was incorrectly diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease three months before his death, but he was actually suffering from Lewy body dementia.

‘Robin and I knew there was so much more going on. Robin was right when he said to me, “I just want to reboot my brain,”‘ the 56-year-old landscape painter told Today’s Hoda Kotb.

‘I was called in to sit down to go over the coroner’s report. They sat me and down and said he essentially Robin died of diffused Lewy body dementia. They started to talk about the neurodegeneration. He wasn’t in his right mind.’

Susan continued: ‘I was relieved it had a name. Robin and I had gone through this experience together, really being chased by an invisible monster. And it was like whack-a-mole with the symptoms. I left there with a name of the disease, the thing that Robin and I had been searching for.’

The UCSF director of memory and aging, Dr. Bruce Miller, said he was ‘amazed’ that ‘Robin could walk or move at all’ after coming down with the deadly neurodegenerative disorder.

Schneider remembered the confusion Williams experienced when instructed by his doctors to sleep in a separate bed from her in order to get some relief from the insomnia that comes with Lewy.

‘He said to me, “Does this mean we’re separated?” And that was a really shocking moment,’ the American Brain Foundation vice chair said.

‘When your best friend, your partner, your love, you realize that there’s a giant chasm somewhere, and you can’t see where it is. But that’s just not based in reality. That was a hard moment.’

Susan – who met the twice-divorced father-of-three at an Apple Store in 2008 before marrying in 2011 – also fondly recalled how he said his life goal was to ‘help people be less afraid.’

‘I thought it was beautiful. And I said, “Honey, you’re already doing that. That’s what you do.” And that is pretty great,’ Schneider smiled.

‘His humor was like this secret weapon and there were so many times when he would see that someone needed a lift and then he would just inject a little bit of humor in just the right way to make a difference.’

Robin’s health battle is depicted in director Tylor Norwood’s critically-acclaimed intimate documentary Robin’s Wish, which started streaming VOD on Tuesday.