14 DAY TRIAL // With comedians, it's hard to say when they are joking and when they are serious, but if the tragic case of Robin Williams has taught us anything, it’s that we should not take funny people for granted, because behind their joy, serious personal dramas could be hiding.
In an recent interview with Complex, Jerry Seinfeld has the startling confession that he had pondered suicide several times in the past and even gave details about how he planned to do it. The comedian, who calls New York City his home, claims that he often wonders what it would be like to jump from the balcony.
Comedian reveals he fantasizes about jumping from his balcony
“Yeah, well I have a terrace at my apartment and it’s fantastic. You have to come see it sometime. Every time I go out on that terrace I think, Maybe I’ll jump. Because if I jump, the list of things I don’t have to do is so long, the issues I don’t have to deal with. All I have to do is jump and everything is taken care of!” Seinfeld said in a half-serious, half-joking manner that left many people reading wondering if he was being serious.
Of course, he was pressed by the other person to say if he was being serious and he assured him that he was, “I am being serious… Every time… I look over it and I think, I could do it. I could do it. I’m on the 19th floor. [Laughs.] All I got to do is jump…. But there’s nothing there. There’s nothing there to explore, is my point. I’m not going to a shrink to find out why I want to jump off the terrace. That’s a waste of another hour!”
Seinfeld seems to think that life is too long anyway, not worth waiting for death
Proving that he had given the idea a lot of thought, Seinfeld continued to say that life was in fact too long, “They say life is too short. It’s way too long! And we’re filling it in with a lot of fake stuff…. There’s a lot of stuff. Maybe I’ll jump, maybe I won’t. We have to come up with things to fill in the time. There are old people sitting on cruise ships, doing crossword puzzles, just trying to finish it up.”
Seinfeld's conclusion is bitter, “That’s why there are a lot of no-talent celebrities, just to fill in the air. We’ve got too much time, too much space. Too many gigabytes.”
It might be tacky at this point to make a parallel with Robin Williams, who took his own life in his bedroom several months ago, as it was later revealed that he'd been battling depression, but it's hard not to make at least some sort of comparison, since Jerry Seinfeld's mind seems to be filled with dark thoughts these days.
