Artie Lange's Suicide Attempt



(image via indiewire)

After last week's killer appearance on The Jimmy Kimmel Show -- at the expense of the clearly overmatched Candace Bushnell -- it was a poignant moment indeed when Artie Lange spoke of the moment when he was nearly both the killer and the killed. On this morning's Howard Stern Show Artie Lange, that lovable everyman fuckup, admitted to a "formal" suicide attempt ("formal" was his word). Lange, who for years has battled various addictions (materialism, people, materialism), didn't surprise Howard Stern with this revelation. There is even a callous blog devoted to his Death Watch.

Lange spoke today about a chapter in his new book "Too Fat To Fish" about the suicide attempt in Los Angeles, away from family, when he was working at MadTV. As always, Lange managed to find some humor in that morbid situation. From Marksfriggin:

"(HowardTV news reporter Lisa G) got to her news preview and said she spoke to Artie's sister Stacey about his book. Howard said he hasn't read the book yet himself. He said he has a vacation coming up though so he'll read it then. Lisa said there's a chapter in there that they might want to talk about. Howard said they should, there's no reason to keep that a secret.

"Lisa said it was the chapter about Artie trying to commit suicide. Howard wasn't surprised because he's always trying to kill himself eating as much as he does. Artie said that this was a formal attempt. He said that when he was at MAD TV he ran out of coke, which sucks, and he was out of his mind. He wrote a note to his mother and sister and it was for real.

"Artie said he had some sleeping tablets that were really strong. He took about 25 of these pills and took all of the Excedrin PM pills he had and a half bottle of Jack Daniels. He figured that would do the trick but it didn't work. Artie said the note was short and it was to his mother and sister saying 'Ma and Stace, I'm sorry about this but I can't deal with life for some reason. None of this is your fault, do me a favor and keep on livin, maybe I'll see you again some day.'

"Artie said he changed his shorts before he did that because he didn't want to die in the sweat pants he was wearing."

Actually the whole story could be summed up in that last ridiculous sentence. After the cast and crew found the note and got him into rehab, Quincy Delight Jones -- that's his real middle name -- who was the Executive Producer aty MadTV, where Artie was working, promised the tired comedian "When you come back here, you're [still] gonna have a job."

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