Marie Osmond on 'Oprah': My Son Was Not Gay
Marie Osmond opens up about son Michael Blosil's suicide on "Oprah."
Nov. 11, 2010 — -- In her first interview since her 18-year-old son, Michael Blosil, committed suicide, Marie Osmond opened up about his struggle with depression, drugs, and his sexuality.
"My son was not gay," Osmond told Oprah Winfrey in an interview scheduled to air on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" today. "He wanted to be married and have a family and travel all over the world. And it wouldn't matter if he was. I have a daughter who is gay, and it was my daughter who was offended by it, like, 'What? All gay kids commit suicide?' She really wanted it cleared up."
After Blosil's death early this year, many bloggers speculated that Blosil's struggle with his sexuality may have led him to commit suicide. He jumped to his death from the roof of his Los Angeles apartment building last Feb. 26. But Osmond stressed that Blosil loved women.
"You want the perfect man? That was my son -- chivalrous, loved, honored women. Treated them with respect," she told Winfrey.
In her tearful interview, the singer-actress, 51, recounted her son's death. Osmond revealed that Blosil called her the night he committed suicide, but she didn't answer the phone because she was performing.
"I've been through some tough things in my life, Oprah. This is probably the hardest that I've been through," she said. "I think there are always what-ifs. ... I think if you live in what-ifs, you stop living."
Blosil, a first-year student at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in California, had battled substance abuse and depression for much of his life -- he had his first stint in rehab at age 12. One of five children Osmond adopted with now ex-husband Brian Blosil, Michael Blosil first tried to commit suicide after his parents' divorce in 2007.