Ace stand-up comedian, actor, and television host Bob Saget was, of course, best known for playing the role of Danny Tanner in the 1987 to 1995 sitcom Full House, as well as its Netflix 2016 to 2020 sequel, Fuller House. In the months preceding his death on January 9, 2022, he had been spending a great deal of time thinking about death.
In an interview with Til This Day with Radio Rahim in May 2022, Saget spoke about his development as a person, explaining, “I’m proud of myself because I’m onto a new thing. At 65, I’m different than I was. We’re all rethinking what we said twenty years ago, ten years ago, four years ago. I’m not even rethinking it; I just don’t have the same way of doing humor or conversation.”
What Made Him Reflect On Mortality
But the conversation got deeper than that. As he reflected, numerous relatives, such as uncles, aunts, cousins, and sisters, had passed away throughout his life. And these losses helped to shape his perspective. Talking about this on Radio Rahim, he said, “I guess therapy, having three kids, watching people pass away in the past few years, mortality, all that stuff has fortunately changed me. My kids tell me, ‘Dad, you’re different. It’s so nice to watch you grow.’
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“The deaths,” he continued, “started when I was, like, seven, and then every two years somebody died. I had a cousin die — she died at 23 of cancer after giving birth to her child — and then a lot of cousins went through a lot of hardship, and I was, like, 12 or 14. It was a lot. And then I lost both my sisters. There’s so much pain, and my parents couldn’t deal with it. And every time they finally started to regroup, something else terrible happened. And then one of my sisters [Gay] got this disease Scleroderma in 1994.”
Bob Saget’s Death
November 23, 2015 Bob Saget attending the premiere of ‘The Big Short’ at Ziegfeld Theatre on November 23, 2015 in New York City. Credit: Kristin Callahan/ACE Pictures
Saget was on a comedy tour and had initially performed in Ponte Vedra Beach on the evening of January 8, 2022, after which he lodged at the Ritz-Carlton in Florida. The next day, at about 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the unresponsive body of Saget, who was 65 years old, was found in his room. His family members were worried after several attempts to reach him, and he had also missed his appointed checkout time. He was confirmed dead by the emergency responders who rushed to the scene.
An autopsy was performed, and the report was made public on February 9, 2022, which stated that the deceased had a blunt head trauma resulting from an accidental blow to the back of his head. This blow was likely from a fall.
His funeral was on January 14, 2022, and he was buried at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, close to the graves of his parents and sister.
Kelly Rizzo, his wife whom he married in 2018, posted a tribute to her husband via her Instagram page, saying. “After much reflection this week, I’m really trying to not think I was robbed of time. But instead to think: How lucky I was that I got to be the one to be married to THE MOST INCREDIBLE MAN ON EARTH.”
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