Jeff Garlin Says He Planned to Kill Himself as His “Goldbergs” Run Ended

Jeff Garlin says he had a nervous breakdown and intended to take his own life near the end of his time on ABC’s “The Goldbergs.” He was saved, he said, after he texted his “Curb Your Enthusiasm” co-star Susie Essman to tell her when he planned to do it.

“I had a nervous breakdown and I was going to commit suicide,” Garlin, 64, told Ted Danson on the Oct. 21 episode of the SiriusXM podcast “Where Everybody Knows Your Name.” “I reached out to Susie, and I said, ‘I hate when people don’t reach out, but at noon today, I will be dead. I’m letting you know I will be dead.’”

Essman called Garlin’s ex-wife, Marla Garlin, and his girlfriend, Sari Tracht, Entertainment Weekly reported. They asked his best friend, Brad Morris, to stay with him while they looked for a treatment facility.

Garlin said he chose a program in Ohio over one closer to home. “I’m not going to some f–king rehab in Beverly Hills,” he said, according to TheWrap. “I went to Cincinnati in the middle of winter, and I learned this thing called DBT, dialectical behavior therapy,” he told Danson. “I was no longer suicidal.”

He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and said it took years of therapy and medication before he “felt kind of whole.” Five years later, he said, he is “just now feeling really good.” He also said he wondered why “no one at Sony,” the studio behind the show, noticed he was struggling.

Garlin played family patriarch Murray Goldberg. He left the series in 2021 after staff members reported him to human resources for verbal and physical conduct that made people uncomfortable, according to Entertainment Weekly, which reported at the time that the split was mutual. Garlin disputed the complaints then. He told Vanity Fair in December 2021 that his comedic process was being described as creating an “unsafe” workplace, and that he did not understand how his “silliness” could do that.

On the podcast, Garlin said he told the same raunchy jokes on “The Goldbergs” that were expected of him on “Curb,” but that he felt “a dark thing” on the ABC set. “I was miserable, and I did not appreciate the wonderful gift I’d been given,” he said. “People on the show were lovely, and I was miserable, miserable, miserable.”

He has also described a blowout on set and an effort to negotiate an arrangement in which he would film only once a week, which he said caused resentment among the cast. Wendi McLendon-Covey, who played his wife, Beverly, has pushed back on his version of his exit. “Let’s just say I remember things very differently, as does the crew, the other actors, the writers, and our executives,” she said.

Garlin’s book, “Best Seat in the House: Moments No One Asked Me to Capture … But I Did Anyway,” was released in September.

Mark Groubert said he knows Garlin a little and has dealt with him a number of times. “Great guy. Really a nice guy,” he said, adding that Garlin is now on the road to recovery.

Groubert said that, as he remembered it, the HR complaints were about Garlin swearing on set and using foul language that people did not want to hear. “This is not a me too. This is not sexual,” he said. Entertainment Weekly’s reporting describes the complaints as involving both verbal and physical conduct. It does not describe them as sexual.

He also gave his audience a short lesson in comedy club etiquette after a viewer said Garlin had “bumped” other comics. A headliner who drops in, Groubert explained, is put on ahead of the lineup so he can do his set and leave, and the comics already waiting are pushed back.

In an account of the interview that Groubert read, Garlin said that alongside dialectical behavior therapy and his regular therapy, he took up boxing and worked on getting physically healthy.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or chat at 988lifeline.org.