I know this is dark subject matter, dear Buffyfest readers, but Nicholas Brendon is one of ours and needs some support right now. Obviously he's ready to tell his story so we're ok with mentioning it.
Several months ago Nicholas Brendon stormed off the set of
The Dr. Phil Show. At the time, he accused Dr. Phil of going for "the jugular" and forcing him to "lay the darkest parts of myself on national TV".
Today, our Xander returned to the show after being arrested 4 times this year for various reasons (trashing a hotel room, pub;ic intoxication and most recently, a domestic violence incident with his girlfriend). On today's show, Nicky told Dr. Phil that he blacked out during most of these incidents. He has now checked into a 90-day depression program at a Florida rehab center in October (but was allowed to attend Toulouse Game Show, a French fan convention, last week.)
Nicky opened up about attempting suicide because of his substance abuse.
"I cut my wrists with a steak knife," Nicholas Brendon told Dr. Phil McGaw, crying.
"Did you want to die that day?" Dr. Phil asked.
"I think I wanted to be heard. I think I wanted to be helped, you know?" he said. "Because I think there's a lot of good life to live."
He also insisted he did not choke his girlfriend. "I just felt at that time that my girlfriend shouldn't drive, so I tried to take her keys away. I held her down to get the keys."
"When you wake up in jail and you're not sure why you're there, that's a very, very lonely feeling," Nicholas says.
He also delved into his childhood trauma of being molested by a music teacher, who went to jail in 1981, when he was about 10 years old.
After the teacher was caught, Brendon said he felt "numb, and then the betrayal kind of came to fruition after it all came out, and then anger."
"I think about it every day of my life and I wonder how it affected me … did I stop growing emotionally?" he added. "When you're molested for a couple years and you're blamed for it by the people who are supposed to be your protectors, there's going to be a lot of confusion and a lot of sadness."
At the end of the interview, Brendon checked into a dual diagnosis treatment center, HeadWaters at Origins.
"Maybe I'm just done," he said. "Maybe I'm ready to be happy now."
See a clip below:
