Patrick Swayze’s Wife Reveals How She Left Him Over Booze Problem
PATRICK Swayze’s grieving wife Lisa Niemi has revealed how she left him six years ago when her husband descended into a period of heavy drinking and “very dark thoughts.”
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey — her first since Patrick’s death in September — Niemi says she and Swayze spent most of 2003 living apart from each other.
“He was imploding pretty badly,” Lisa said. “I didn’t think he was going to live through it and I didn’t want to watch that.”
But the couple — who first met in 1970 when Swayze was 18 years old and Niemi, 14 — reconciled and regained their happiness — only to be tested again when the Dirty Dancing star was diagnosed 22 months ago with pancreatic cancer and was told he had three months to live.
“It was mind numbing,” Niemi says. When faced with the devastating information, “You think you’re going to get these terrific illuminations,” she says, but that didn’t happen. “I looked around and I said, ‘This is awful.’”
Niemi also revealed that she’s still struggling to come to terms with Swayze’s death.
“When we first had the diagnosis, I cried in front of him,” she told Winfrey. “I said, ‘This is the one time I’m going to do this…’
“When he looked at me and looked in my eyes, I wanted him to know he was going to be OK, no matter what,” she continued. “Both of us had to deal with this illness, but he’s the one that was going to pay the ultimate price.”
On the day he died, Patrick was “very comfortable,” Niemi said, noting that she was by his side the entire time. “I was afraid to leave his side, and luckily I was so happy I was there,” she told Winfrey.
Since his passing, Lisa said she still feels Patrick around her.
“I feel him here. I feel like he hasn’t left. I can feel every contour of his hand in mine,” she said.
Tags: lisa niemi, patrick swayze
SOOO PRECIOUS… THEY WERE A BEAUTIFUL COUPLE..MAY HE REST N HEAVENLY PEACE…HE IZ NOW HER GUARDIAN ANGEL!!! REST N HEAVENLY PEACE, PATRICK “WAYNE” SWAYZE!!!
Ditto
I know how you feel when someone you love die.
My wife died on February 23, 2009.
My GOD bless you all.
I had the honor of meeting Patrick at a horse show right after his big hit with Dirty Dancing. He was the nicest person I have ever met, and he only talked about his beautiful wife Lisa.
I am sorry for your loss.
I can truly understand what she is going through. I have never contributed to a site such as this, but I lost my husband to cancer 9 months ago, I still can’t believe he is gone, if it weren’t for the granddaughter we adopted 18 years ago, I would not want to continue with my life, she calls me at least once a day to check in with me. The rest of my family is so resentful of her I can’t believe it. She is all that keeps me going and she is wonderful to me, I have begged her to finish her senior year in college, and she is doing that, she misses him as deeply as I do. Unfortunately I have had to rely on the rest of my family to keep my house, and have some of them living with me–it is pure hell. With Jesus’s help we will get through this. I hope Lisa can do the same. I know Patrick, as well as my husband, would want us to.
I have been a true & loyal fan of Patrick since his first appearance in “North & South”. I have watched every movie of his since then! He was the consummate gentleman when I also met him at a horse show several years ago. We will remember him for his roles, esp. in “Dirty Dancing” & “Ghost”, his passion for his wife, and beautiful Arabian horses!! Too bad he could not leave some of his depth & character to the actors we see floundering in their personal lives today!!
N.W.
I know you’ll never read this as Patrick was so popular and loved but i faced his announcement two years ago. My doc was in tears when she had to tell me of cancer and it being in-operable! you could have literally hit me in the head with a hammer and I barely would have felt it! Well chemo has me in remission and I feel Patrick’s pain Mrs. Swayze because I almost left my wife of 30 years a widow .
My dear mother passed away in 1998 after I had taken excellent care of her 24/7 for the previous seven years. We had become very close as only a mother and son can during such a trying time. I still miss her as I am sure Lisa will miss Patrick for the rest of her life. Losing her was the most difficult experience of my life, so, I may know much of the grief process Lisa is going through. I thought I would literally die of grief and I’m sure she feels the same way now, but time will lift much of the burden.
I do not know Patrick’s spiritual condition at his death; however, I hope he had his passport to heaven (Luke 9:23f) validated before his known date of departure. It would be a great tragedy otherwise.
Patrick was primarily a dancer who could act as am I at 75. He knew as do I the enormous pure pleasure of moving in perfect harmony with great music and being carried away by it (in my case, through worship dancing). That is one of the greatest experiences possible to a human being and he lived it many, many times. How very fortunate was he in that respect as was he in his marriage to a wonderful woman of insight, maturity and talent, Lisa Niemi.
After my gym friend, Steve Louden, passed away from bladder cancer last year, I began to search out alternative cancer cures that actually work. One day on the Internet, I happened upon a health expert as he was interviewing an Italian oncologist who has been curing cancer of all types for over thirty years at his clinic in Rome. His name is Dr. Tulio Simoncini. His cancer protocol is used in hospitals and clinics in Italy and increasingly all over the world. It is difficult to ignore a 90% cure rate, usually in as little as 48 days with no remissions. Had Steve, Patrick, Farrah and all other cancer victims for the last 30 years gone to Rome for Simoncini’s treatment, they would all have been permanently cured long ago. That would be over 500,000 American lives saved in 2009 alone. Beyond that, our cancer industry, a dismal failure if ever there was one, costs us 100 BILLION dollars a year. This has to change, and quickly.
We cannot bring Patrick or Steve or Farrah back, but we can prevent the cancer deaths of 500,000 men, women and children next year, and the next, and the next, ad infinitum. Join the movement. Begin by taking a good look at http://www.cancerfungus.com. It is free and without obligation.