“Ellen DeGeneres Show” producer Andy Lassner — who struggled with addiction in the past — says the late comedian Richard Lewis saved his life.
Lassner posted a touching tribute to the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star after news of his death broke Wednesday.
“He was one of the many angels in my life who saved me,” Lassner wrote of Lewis, who died of a heart attack at age 76.
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Lassner posted that within a year of moving to Los Angeles in 1998, addiction had “once again ravaged” his life.
“I was a mess,” he wrote, adding that he barely remembers being taken to a 12-step meeting at the time.
One dim memory he did have, however, was Lewis chasing him down in the parking lot, where he insisted on giving Lassner his phone number, instructing him to, “Call me tomorrow just to tell me you’re OK.”
“We spoke. I gave him my number and said I’d check in again,” he continued, adding that “the problem was I had given Richard my number and he wouldn’t stop f–king call me.”
Lassner tried to get the standup comedian to stop incessantly calling but “he wouldn’t stop. Every single day. ‘Hey it’s Richard. Call me.’ I wouldn’t return his call. He was so annoyingly persistent.”
Then one day the Daytime Emmy winner hit rock bottom. He was holed up in a hotel room on Sunset Boulevard. The comedian called yet again and Lassner answered.
The next thing he remembered was “a knock on the door and there stood Richard” who took the troubled Lassner to his house and then arranged for him to go back into rehab.
“I had lots of helpers,” he added. “I was a f–king mess.”
Lassner wasn’t the only celeb to credit the late comedian with the gift of sobriety.
Jamie Lee Curtis, 65, starred opposite Lewis in the sitcom “Anything But Love” which ran from 1989 to 1992.
The Oscar winner, who has spoken about a lengthy addiction to opiates, wrote on Instagram that Lewis “is the reason I am sober.”
“He helped me. I am forever grateful for him for that act of grace alone,” she added.
Lewis got sober from drugs and alcohol in 1994.
In 2021, he celebrated 27 years of sobriety.
“August 3, 1994 I thought that I was near death from alcoholism,” he tweeted. “Early the next day I was rushed to the ER and turned my life around a day, sometimes a minute at a time.”
“If you’re struggling you can get help,” the “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” star added. “I did. 8/4/21 27 years sober.”
