Tragic Details About Howie Mandel

Howie Mandel has come a long way from a troublemaking kid living in Toronto, Canada to a Hollywood star. His first big break came in 1979 when he joined a game show called "Make Me Laugh." Interestingly, the career-changing opportunity was actually a lucky fluke. Mandel was visiting Los Angeles with friends who convinced him to take the mic at the Comedy Store. Show producers happened to be in the audience that night and quickly took notice of the young talent.

After that, the roles kept coming, including a stint on NBC's "St. Elsewhere" in the early 1980s. Two decades later, he was still working constantly and landed his own show in 2005 — "Deal or No Deal" — thus hanging with Meghan Markle and solidifying his status as a bona fide celebrity. Today, Mandel's net worth has hit an estimated $60 million and he's showing no signs of slowing down. However, despite all of his wins, life hasn't always been easy.

Despite building a career on laughs, Mandel has been candid about his own mental health, including the challenges of living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) triggered by a fear of germs. As he told Kelly Clarkson in 2022, what you see isn't always the full story. "People think that I'm happy and enjoying myself ... [but] I'm a mess," he confessed. This is the tragic truth about Howie Mandel.

Howie Mandel has spoken candidly about his life with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), but he wasn't always so open. Although he dealt with OCD symptoms for most of his life, the "America's Got Talent" judge was first officially diagnosed in his 40s. While he sought treatment, including medication and therapy, he initially didn't want anyone to know.

"I was embarrassed that I had this problem, and when you have a mental health problem, there is a stigma," he admitted to Today in 2023. As he told the outlet, he realized that sharing his experience can have a big impact on others. "The more people that talk about it, the wider that safety net gets thrown for all of us," he mused.

While he has found ways of coping with his OCD, it's something he'll have to deal with for the rest of his life, as there is no cure. "The word 'suffer' is not even strong enough," he told USA Today, explaining how OCD makes you focus on fears, triggering repetitive behaviors. In his case, Mandel is afraid of germs, and something as simple as shaking hands can trigger a compulsion. "If I think I got a germ on my hand, I can't think or hear anything else," he explained. Instead, he'll head to the sink and repeatedly wash his hands at length. "It's just this vicious, dark circle, and it makes you [...] unproductive, unhappy, depressed," he said. As he relayed to Today, "Inside my head, it is a war zone."

While Howie Mandel wasn't officially diagnosed with OCD until his 40s, he has exhibited symptoms most of his life, stemming from a traumatizing childhood incident. As he recalled in his 2009 memoir, "Here's the Deal: Don't Touch Me," when Mandel was a kid, his family traveled to Miami from their native Canada every winter. On one such vacation, he was enjoying the beach when a sand fly bit him and laid eggs under his skin.

Soon, bumps sprouted across his legs, then horror followed as the eggs hatched. "They were itchy, and they moved," he recalled, writing how doctors simply couldn't figure out a way to banish the larvae. One professional prescribed pills that had previously only been given to cattle with the same condition. Another used liquid nitrogen — an experience that would mark him forever. "It actually sizzled and burned," Mandel wrote in his book. "The pain was piercing."

His mother soon intervened and began a DIY at-home treatment, which eventually worked. However, the damage was done. "I can't even begin to tell you what this did to me psychologically," he wrote. To this day, any time his OCD is triggered by his fear of germs, Mandel pictures his skin bubbling under the liquid nitrogen and "it feels as if there are organisms trying to make their way under my skin."

In addition to his OCD, Howie Mandel has also dealt with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and anxiety. As he explained to Today in 2023, obsessive-compulsive disorder is often accompanied by anxiety and depression, and he has experienced both. Indeed, he told the outlet he has found himself in "dark moments where I didn't know how I could go on." Similarly, he explained to People that despite loving his home life and being thankful for his career, "I can fall into a dark depression I can't get out of."

What's more, the TV personality was also diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. He had long found comfort in doing stand up comedy, and later hosting "Deal or No Deal," as both gigs allowed him to move around as much as he liked while taking his mind off of his fears, even if just for a few minutes. "If I'm not laughing, then I'm crying. And I still haven't been that open about how dark and ugly it really gets," he said to People. Speaking about living with his conditions, he mused, "I'm living in a nightmare."

Howie Mandel's OCD and ADHD haven't just impacted his life, they've also been hard on his family. As he wrote in ADDitude in 2022, "My wife and children have been through therapy because of the problems my disorders have caused."

Mandel met his wife, Terry, in high school, and they have been together for over three decades, but he said communication has always been hard due to his ADHD. "She can't get through a conversation with me without having to reel me back in," the comedian admitted. "Every talk we have is peppered with, 'Howie, Howie! Are you paying attention?'" That same inability to sit still and listen has also impacted his fatherhood journey. "One of the great pleasures of having children is spending one-on-one time with them," he wrote. "Sadly, I could do that for only a few minutes at a time."

Plus, long before he was officially diagnosed with OCD, Mandel's fears were impacting his family. "I'd have my children and my wife spray everything down and not touch things," he told Today. "I was making their life miserable." Eventually, Terry gave her husband an ultimatum, demanding he seek professional help or she'd leave. "It was an ultimatum that made me ultimately go to therapy, and I got diagnosed [with OCD]," he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic was difficult for everyone, but as Howie Mandel told USA Today in 2023, "For somebody who was triggered by germs, COVID was not helpful." But he didn't just fear for his own health — the idea of his family potentially becoming sick proved to be a major trigger.

"There isn't a waking moment of my life when 'we could die' doesn't come into my psyche, but the solace I would get would be the fact that everybody around me was okay," he expressed to People. However, that solace was no longer there during the pandemic. "It was absolute hell," he shared, later telling USA Today, "I'm traumatized by it."

Making matters worse was his own COVID-19 diagnosis. Mandel became sick in 2022 following his first public outing to the Kids' Choice Awards. He had to self-quarantine for 10 days and while his symptoms were manageable, his mental health took a real hit. "I got incredibly depressed, incredibly neurotic," he told TMZ, noting how being alone meant he had no way of keeping his brain from focusing on his fears. "My only panacea to my physical health and my mental health is distracting myself," he shared. "You can't distract yourself for 10 days alone in a room."

Howie and Terry Mandel share three kids together, and, in 2021, Howie revealed that their eldest daughter, Jackelyn, was also dealing with anxiety and OCD. The comedian puts much of the blame on himself, saying to People, "I'm not proud of that gift I've given her." The outlet also spoke with Jackie, who shared she has been dealing with fears similar to her father's since her preteens.

Like her dad, she's afraid of germs and the pandemic was tough to overcome. "My anxiety sometimes leads to depression," she told the publication. "I went through the extreme and I just locked myself in." Luckily, she had her dad for support. "Whenever I was upset or sad or having a bad day, I knew I could reach out," she said.

Interestingly, that wasn't always the case. As Jackie recalled to People, their shared diagnosis didn't do much to help their relationship when she was a teen. "There were a lot of control issues about me being safe, like, where was I, what did I get into, what did I touch? He was strict," she recounted. "There was a lot of hovering — we had trouble getting along in those times."

Howie Mandel's health made headlines again in October 2021 when he suffered an unexpected health scare during his usual Starbucks run. Mandel was visiting his local shop in LA's Woodland Hills with his wife and friends when he suddenly lost consciousness.

The Los Angeles Fire Department told Us Weekly that a crew had indeed responded to a 911 call to help a man suffering from "chest pain." TMZ also learned additional details, namely that the "America's Got Talent" judge fainted and was laid out on a bench before help arrived. Luckily, he was actually able to sit up when paramedics showed up. Even so, he was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance as a precaution.

Mandel took to X, formerly known as Twitter, later that day to offer an update, saying he felt better and was already back home. "I was dehydrated and had low blood sugar," he explained. "Thank you to everyone who reached out but I am doing ok!" He also blamed said dehydration on a colonoscopy he had just a few days prior, saying on his podcast, "Howie Mandel Does Stuff," that was likely the cause behind his getting dizzy and fainting while at the coffee chain.

What happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas. Howie and Terry Mandel enjoyed a night out in Sin City perhaps a little too much in 2024, as it ended with Terry needing to go to the hospital. As Howie shared on "Live with Kelly and Mark," they had dinner, then partied, and "it was too much, and she was tipsy."

The couple eventually made it to bed, but when Terry got up in the middle of the night, she suffered a gruesome injury after walking into a wall. "She fell and hit the wainscoting," the comedian told viewers, showing a photo of Terry with her eye bruised shut and a large, bleeding cut on her forehead. "She slipped, went down, hit that on her eye, then fell on the floor and broke her cheek," he continued. Turning on the lights, he got quite the surprise. "There's blood everywhere," he said. Then things went from bad to worse. "You can actually see her skull — it opened up," he recalled.

Amidst his panic, Howie called hotel reception to request an ambulance, but instead, they sent up a security team. Rather than calling 911, they proceeded to question the couple under the suspicion that Howie may have hurt Terry. Ultimately, she received the help she needed and Howie later told TMZ that his wife wasn't actually drunk, just high on weed gummies.