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Restaurateur Keith McNally has revealed he attempted suicide after suffering a debilitating stroke that left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak.
The man behind some of NYC’s most famed eateries, from the Odeon to Balthazar to Pastis, tells in his new memoir, “I Regret Almost Everything,” how he swallowed 53 pills while at his summer house on Martha’s Vineyard in August 2018.
He was found by his teenage son George and rushed to hospital, where he “surfaced” 14 hours later. He was then sent to a psychiatric clinic for two months.
McNally — who is infamous for raging against celebrities including James Corden and Lauren Sánchez on Instagram — had sunk into a deep depression as his second marriage to wife Alina was ending.
The couple planned to tell their kids, George and Alice, that they were divorcing, and McNally was also suffering from terrible back pain.
“I couldn’t face being unable to take an active part in my children’s life anymore,” he writes. “Surely better to end it now and leave them with memories of an active father, rather than of a bystander in a wheelchair.”
After breaking the news of their impending divorce, Alina moved into a summer cottage on the vineyard.
“Those nights in my large summer house without George and Alice plunged me into a dark place,” McNally, now 73, writes.
“I realized I was living a life feeding off scraps. All my life I’d been told I was lucky. But it turned out I’d drawn the short straw. I decided to commit suicide.”
British-born McNally suffered a stroke on November 26, 2016, while in London; it not only affected his speech but caused partial paralysis.
Recounting the moment he tried to end his life, McNally says he went to bed early, locked his bedroom door and retrieved the stash of 33 Ambien and 15 Percocet pills he had been hoarding, swallowing the whole lot in under two minutes.
“I then became inexplicably anxious about my catalpa trees because I wasn’t sure who was going to take care of them in my absence. And then … nothingness,” he writes.
“Fourteen hours later, I surfaced from oblivion, in Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, hooked up to an IV, with George and Alina staring at me. One in relief, the other in contempt. If I had any hopes of Alina loving me again, the withering look she gave me right then dispelled them forever. It was clear she wanted no more to do with me.”
His first wife, Lynn, and their son Harry rushed to McNally’s side — as did his brother Brian, the restaurateur behind Indochine and with whom McNally famously feuded in the past. He was eventually transferred to McLean, a psychiatric hospital near Boston.
It was the same place his and Lynn’s daughter Isabelle, an actress, had been admitted to 10 years earlier — and McNally had refused to visit her.
He finally returned to NYC to launch Pastis in the Meatpacking District in June 2019.
The restaurateur also writes about how he nearly died in the midst of the pandemic after contracting Covid and spent eight days in hospital.
“For the second time in less than 10 years I thought I might die. Only this time I didn’t want to,” he writes.
“They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That through suffering you attain a benevolence, an otherworldliness that somehow makes you a better and more decent person. What crap.”
But, he also admits his health woes have changed him “a little … accidental gestures of kindness have a disproportionate effect on me, a taxi driver’s thoughtfulness, a busboy’s sensitivity, a doorman’s courtesy. These small, unprompted acts of decency suddenly have more resonance.”
Since his stroke, McNally adds, “I’m embarrassed to say I cry more easily.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse or suicide, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.
English (US)