Alicia Witt is opening up about her parents’ shocking deaths.
The Walking Dead star lost her mom Diane Witt, 75, and dad Robert Witt, 87, in late December after they seemingly died of hypothermia in their home. She had called an unnamed cousin and cops to perform a welfare check after not hearing from them for a couple of days. Upon arrival, they discovered the couple dead in their house in Worcester, Massachusetts.
At the time, Witt released a brief statement to confirm their passing, but now one month after the tragedy, she is speaking out about her parents’ life and final days. Taking to Facebook with a lengthy update, the 46-year-old first reflected on the moment she learned that her parents were gone, saying:
“it still doesn’t feel real. it’s been a month since i got scared, not having heard back from them, and called to have them checked on. waiting, phone in hand, praying fervently that the next call would be from them, angry i’d gotten someone else involved. knowing as soon as i heard the detective’s voice on the other line that they were gone. knowing i would never hear their voices again. beginning the rest of my life of finding them on the breeze, in a song, in a dream.”
Such a sad, sad thing to process…
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The Dune alum then shared details about what led to her parents’ loss in hopes of clearing up “some misconceptions rolling around,” noting:
“the circumstances around my parents’ sudden passings have become fodder for press, and there are some misconceptions rolling around – understandably so. this is very delicate for me to write because i’m wanting to honor their privacy, which they held so tightly. there’s an awful irony in the fact that, because of the very lengths they went to in order to protect their privacy in life – that privacy has been stripped away in death. i never imagined i would have to talk about this publicly – much less, amidst overwhelming floods of grief.”
She then went on to address the dilapidated state of her parents’ home, noting:
“i hadn’t been allowed inside my parents’ home for well over a decade; every time i offered to have something repaired for them, they refused to allow workers into their house. i begged, cried, tried to reason with them, tried to convince them to let me help them move – but every time, they became furious with me, telling me i had no right to tell them how to live their lives and that they had it all under control. it was not for a lack of trying on my part, or the part of other people who loved them.”
As reported, their heating issues ultimately led to their death as they suffered in the cold with one space heater while temperatures dropped to the teens. Robert was also fighting cancer while Diane had Parkinson’s Disease. While she wasn’t allowed inside the house, whenever in town for a film, Alicia would send a car to pick them up and visit her, according to a neighbor who spoke to the Telegram and Gazette. Robert and Diane made sure to watch her projects whenever they were on TV as well, though they had to go to a neighbor’s because they didn’t have cable, a television, or a computer according to court docs. But, despite how close they were, the Massachusetts residents still didn’t divulge all their problems, Alicia continued:
“i had no idea that their heat had gone out. i will never understand how or why they made the choice not to tell me this, not to let me help them with this. my heart is broken.”
We cannot imagine how difficult it must be to cope with the way they passed, especially knowing there was an easy solution to help them during that tough time. Sadly, it sounds like even if the Christmas Tree Lane lead knew about the couple’s heat, they likely wouldn’t have let her fix the issue, she added:
“my parents were not penniless. they were fiercely stubborn, beautifully original souls, and with that, they made choices – choices that i couldn’t talk them out of. i did help them, in all the ways i could – in all the ways they would let me.
i struggle, as much as i helped, with what else could i have done – short of petitioning the court system for taking control of two otherwise very sharp, very independent, very capable adults. they were a united, intertwined, indivisible force, determined to do things their own way. knowing they had each other – battling them the way i would have had to in order to do this truly felt like it would have destroyed them.”
Whoa…
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To prove how stubborn they really were, the singer also insisted that if Robert and Diane knew what their final moments were they probably wouldn’t have changed a thing. She mused:
“and even if i could have had a crystal ball and looked into the future- if i could have said to them ‘you are going to break my heart and the hearts of all who love you with a worst-case-scenario ending if you don’t let us help you’ – i still think they would have made the same choices. they weren’t willing to make different ones.
our last words to each other were ‘i love you’. that part was simple; never in doubt. they loved me so. i loved them so.”
Thankfully, Alicia was able to make it home for a private funeral service to pay tribute to her family, something she is “grateful” for amid the attention to her parents’ deaths.
“i am deeply grateful for the gift of having been able to quietly travel to Worcester earlier this month for a beautiful service and burial, to mourn and to celebrate them in total privacy. i will forever be indebted to Mercadente Funeral Home for going to great lengths to make this possible.”
As she processes the deep loss, she is thankful for those who have reached out to support her as well as share stories of her parents.
“thank you, also, to all those who have reached out with your memories about my parents. they were brilliant educators, deeply kind, curious, intuitive, wise, young at heart, funny – there will never be enough adjectives to describe them.”
Our heart goes out to Alicia and all of the Witt’s friends and family. This is truly such a heartbreaking loss. Read her full post and check out a series of throwback photos she included with her tribute (below).
R.I.P.
[Image via Alicia Witt/Instagram & FayesVision/WENN]
The post Alicia Witt's Parents Hadn't Let Her In Their Home For 'Over A Decade' Before Freezing To Death appeared first on Perez Hilton.