Patton Oswalt says comedy is helping him cope with wife's death

5 November 2016

Patton Oswalt says comedy is helping him to cope with his wife Michelle McNamara's death.

Patton Oswalt

The 'Ratatouille' star's spouse of 11 years passed away in her sleep at their home in Los Angeles six months ago and Patton admitted getting back to stand-up comedy and sharing his grief with the audience has been a comfort.

Speaking on 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert', he said: "I think it's a way for me to - it feels like you've summoned this virus and you've become this avatar of loss - to de-summon it the more you talk openly about what it is and put more light onto it, people can see all the angles and say, 'Oh, okay. That is horrible, but there's life on either side of it and it's somehow manageable.'

"There are these really long messages that I'll get, and you see the length of the message is them beginning to talk about it and write about it and then it just comes pouring out. If you don't talk about it, then grief really gets to set up and fortify its position inside of you and begin to immobilise you. But the more you talk, the more you expose it to the air and to the light. Grief doesn't get a chance to organise itself, and then you can maybe move on a little better, a little easier. That's been my experience is these six months."

A cause of death has not yet been established but Patton has previously said he believes the crime writer died from an accidental Xanax overdose.

He told the New York Times: "I have a feeling it might have been an overdose. That's what the paramedics there were saying while I was screaming and throwing up.

"I was literally blinking trying to get out of this."

Michelle - who leaves behind the couple's seven-year-old daughter Alice - was the founder of the website True Crime Diary, which covers breaking stories and old unsolved crimes otherwise known as cold cases.

She started the website almost by chance, because she wanted to satisfy her own curiosity of unsolved crimes.

She said previously: "I wanted to get more involved in the cases that were fuelling my own curiosity.

"It's the ones that really don't get that much attention that interest me because I think what's interesting about them is there's more stuff to be unearthed that hasn't been in the public yet and you can do it."