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Ruth and Bernie Madoff Suicide Attempt: ‘We Decided To Kill Ourselves’

VIDEO
» 18 comments

This Sunday, 60 Minutes will air an interview with Ruth Madoff in which she reveals that she and her husband, disgraced financier Bernie Madoff, tried to commit suicide with an overdose of Ambien on Christmas Eve in 2008. “I don’t know whose idea it was,” the gravelly voiced Madoff matriarch says, “but we decided to kill ourselves.”

Madoff says the couple was getting a string of phone calls and hate mail. So she packed up some antiques and jewelry, mailed them to her kids and grandchildren, and decided to end it all. “I just can’t go on anymore,” she remembers thinking.

She and Bernie took the pills…but woke up the next day. She can’t remember how many they took (“He took more,” she says), but, in the end, the two were not upset that the attempt didn’t work.

“It was very impulsive and I’m glad we woke up.”

Watch a clip of Madoff’s interview below, courtesy of 60 Minutes:

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  • Dr OZ

    She looked at Bernie and said ” Damn baby, I slept like a baby last night”
    How about you”?

  • Glenn2473341

    as they say, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”

  • Anonymous

    Bernie is a delusional sociopath but I feel sorry for Ruth.She had to make some really tough choices,some of which were tragic mistakes,and she paid a terrible price.

    How would anyone like to have to choose between loyalty to a husband of 50 years who had done bad things or a family that was in a really dysfunctional place?Just the psychological impacts of that kind of situation must have been enormous.she,in my opinion,was punished far more than Bernie.

  • Anonymous

    Yeah, benzos alone won’t do it. Need some opiates/booze mixed in to stop the heart. Amateurs. Though, I mean, it’s probably better they didn’t die, just in terms of restitution/figuring out what actually happened.

  • Glenn2473341

    If you don’t think she was absolutely complicit in this entire thing, you are crazy.  I believe there is one reason Bernie would plead guilty to a crime where he was facing 150 years in prison – in exchange for the authorities not charging Ruth.  Perhaps the only noble thing he’s ever done in his life. 

  • Anonymous

    She should be doing 40,000 hours community service – thats 40 hrs. a week for 20 years.  It is the least she should be doing.  Oh and give back the money bitch – you should be broke.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Swom-Smith/100002004503875 Swom Smith

    Watch Bernie Madoff Wife’ Ruth Madoff 60 Minutes Interview Full Video

    http://tiny.cc/Ruth-Madoff-60-Minutes

    Ruth Madoff tells, She and her husband Bernie Madoff attempted suicide together.

  • Anonymous

    awww…im really starting to feel sorry for you poor thieving ass, lying ,stealing, dirty rotton wingnut, victim card playing asswipes….here ruthie, u can have my subway tokens, i’ll walk….between this BS and glen beck crying again on TV….it becoming really clear…..U HOBBITS ARE NUTTS….oh and somebody needs to tell mama grizzly that mitt romney is paling around with terrorists…..

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Sam-Brees/100001353990206 Sam Brees

    This woman and all of her children should be in Jail.  I do not feel sorry for her at all.  The Madoff’s ruin thousands of lives and now they want sympathy — not getting it from me.  BTW does anyone know who else is serving jail time for this ponzi scheme.  There is absolutlely no way the other executives and top managers in Madoff’s organization didnt know what was going on. 

    The Feds should take every dime from Ruth Madoff and all others involved in this scandal.  Ruth should be selling perfume at Macys or performing as a clown in the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

  • Anonymous

    I think they can be convinced to carry out with their original plan but that will take money, er, a capital investment. In order to do so each of you early adopters will have to give me, uh, donate $1000 dollars to the endeavor. Then you need to convince two, or more, of your friends to give/donate $1000 dollars. You keep a portion, to compensate for your initial capital investment, and send the rest to me. Tell your friends they need to do the same, and so on and so on.

    It could work. What could possibly go wrong?  Send to Mr. P. Onzi.

  • Anonymous

    For all the money they stole together, they come up with a piss-poor sob story. I’m not buying it. Luckily, I did not buy your stupid ponzi schme, either. My sympathy goes out to the people whose money you stole. So, SHUT UP!  WE DON’T CARE HOW SORRY YOUR FEEL FOR YOURSELF.

  • http://impossibledreamsmedia.com Chris Jones

    Sounds like a typical end for a coward like Madoff. Steal billions in people’s life savings and then kill yourself. He shouldn’t be able to commit suicide but he should be killed.

  • http://impossibledreamsmedia.com Chris Jones

    Terrible phone calls? Hate mail? These people are despicable. Bernie ruined the lives of thousands of people. People who lost everything and are too old to work anymore. What are those people supposed to do? Pathetic.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EOTQDJK7LUU43OZGQDCXABKJQM patrick m

    Let me help please. You oth need to get the Quadaffi treatment.

  • Monks Mcgee

    I do feel bad for his sons, because I do not believe they knew or participated in it.  I feel bad for Ruth to a point.  To think that those antiques and heirlooms were hers to send to her sons is proof that she really didn’t understand how ill-gotten her gains were.  That each penny they had spent for the 20 years he perpetrated the fraud were stolen; no different than what a pick-pocket would’ve taken.  “what was happening” she said was so horrible.  But she doesn’t say, “what he had done was so horrible that we had to deal with the fallout.”  She talks about it like it was a natural disaster and not a calculated fraud.  I have limited sympathy for her.

  • Monks Mcgee

    “There is absolutlely no way the other executives and top managers in Madoff’s organization didnt know what was going on.”

    True, but the sons did not work in his hedge fund business.  They worked in his trading business, which even Harry Markopolous said was legitimate and above board.  I do not believe that his sons would’ve turned him in if they were apart of it.  I think they would’ve taken off to hide with their family in some far away country with no extradition.  I feel bad for his sons and their children.

  • PaulG85

    Too bad they failed.

  • AliveStillKickin

    Hey Ruth…..Please try again.
    NEVER GIVE UP!!!

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