Joe Pantoliano opens up his battle with mental health and lifeline that kept him going – his dogs.
The soprano and GOONES Star, 73, revealed in a recent conversation that he spent almost a decade of fighting undiagnosed clinical depression and resorting to self -medication and destructive habits in an attempt to cope.
“Alcohol, what was available, women you know, risky behavior, act first and then ask questions secondly,” the actor told Page six Thursday.
Pantoliano who played the fleeting Ralph Cifaretto at HBO’s Emmy-winning The sopranoadmitted that he was a “mess for a long time” and attributed some of his problems to grow up with a mother who also suffered from mental health challenges.
He added that his relationship with his wife, actress Nancy Sheppard, and their children were also severely strained in the process. “My wife and my kids were ready to throw me out,” he admitted.
“The only people who were happy to see me were not people. They were my dogs,” the actor remembered.
The last of us Star that is currently starring in the off-Broadway show Ginger -twinscredited further his puppies to save his life.
“It was the only spark that was left in me. I was like Tinkerbell, and the light was dying,” he explained.
Pantoliano finally received a clinical depression diagnosis in 2007. Two years later he founded no fun, too!, A nonprofit aimed at erasing the stigma of mental illness and encouraging others to seek help.
