Martin Short at the 2023 Rare Impact Fund benefit supporting youth mental health. Kevin Winter/Getty Images More than two months after his daughter Katherine Short‘s death, Martin Short is speaking about the tragedy and the issue of mental health.
Katherine Short’s death, reportedly by suicide, has “been a nightmare for the family,” Martin Short said on CBS Sunday Morning.
“But the understanding [is] that mental health and cancer, like my wife’s, are both diseases, and sometimes with diseases they are terminal,” he added. “And 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.”
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Reflecting on his wife, Nancy Dolman, who died in 2010 of ovarian cancer, Short said her final words to him were “let me go.” And he feels that his daughter was saying the same thing.
Katherine Short, one of three children adopted by Martin Short and Dolman, died in late February at the age of 42. At the time, law enforcement sources told TMZ that she died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Katherine Short had a degree in psychology and gender sexuality studies from NYU and earned her master’s degree in social work from USC. According to her website, she later worked at UCLA’s Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital and for the dual-diagnosis outpatient program Camden Center.
The Only Murders in the Building star mostly stayed out of the public eye in the immediate aftermath of his daughter’s death, canceling multiple shows on his and Steve Martin’s music and comedy tour. The tragedy briefly came up during an event with David Letterman at the Netflix is a Joke festival last week, where the former Late Show host said that he’s been thinking of him with sadness lately.
“I’m very sorry for your loss, and I’m so happy you could be here with us tonight,” Letterman said, to which Martin Short responded with “thank you.”
In addition to the losses of his daughter and his wife, Martin Short experienced a great deal of loss in his youth, with his older brother, mother and father all dying within a few years of each other.
“There was definitely a period where life changed completely,” Martin Short said.
Martin Short is the subject of the Lawrence Kasdan-directed Netflix documentary Marty, Life Is Short, which begins streaming on Tuesday.
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