Speed Reads

remembering Bob Saget

Bob Saget reflects on grief in emotional interview taped weeks before his death

Bob Saget reflected on the loss of his sister and the way comedy is "healing" in one of his final interviews taped weeks before his death. 

CBS Mornings on Friday aired an interview with Saget taped on Dec. 6, just over a month before the Full House star died unexpectedly at the age of 65. Saget spoke about the death of his sister, Gay Saget, in 1994 from the rare autoimmune disease scleroderma. 

"We were all in the room when she let out her last breath," Saget said. "I don't know how to explain it, but it felt like … the soul going past us." 

Saget joked he "felt my hair kind of move," and "being an actor, that's a very important thing if your hair gets out of place." When CBS' Jon LaPook noted Saget was injecting humor into such a serious conversation, Saget said, "Humor is the only way my family survived. It is so healthy to laugh, and I'm out there doing it, and I know it's healing for people." 

Since his sister's death, Saget had been working with the Scleroderma Research Foundation, which seeks to find a cure for the disease. He told CBS he "can't watch what happened to my sister happen to more people," adding that he hopes to show her "that her life had a real purpose" through the work. 

"My sister should not be dead," Saget said. "And that's one of the things that's kept me doing this, will keep me doing this until I'm gone. I'll do it when I'm gone." 

Saget was found dead in his hotel room in Florida, where had been performing stand-up. One of his last social media posts was a tribute to Betty White. "I don't know what happens when we die," he wrote, "but if Betty says you get to be with the love of your life, then I happily defer to Betty on this."