Robin Williams had 'serious money troubles' After His $30million Divorce & 'Depressed' His TV Show Was Cancelled

As he stepped out on stage last year to hawk his big TV comeback in front of advertisers, comedy great Robin Williams joked it was 'nice to have a job where the checks will clear.'

After making his name as the eccentric and beloved alien on 1970s TV hit Mork and Mindy, Robin transferred his attentions to Hollywood with a stream of box office hits.

But after acclaim and an Oscar, the movie career started to dry up and the actor signed up for CBS show The Crazy Ones, a small-screen comedy about a 'renowned and slightly unhinged' advertising genius/madman.

While undoubtedly a coup for the network - CBS President Nina Tassler called him 'the biggest get of the season, actually many seasons' and 'one of the defining comedy voices of our time' - Robin was quick to admit he took the gig for cash.

The star's off-the-cuff joke to the room of TV executives, it turned out, was not so funny - in fact, he was being serious. Behind the grin, Robin was dogged by 'serious money troubles' from two divorces that had prompted him to put a Napa home up for sale, and was struggling with depression.

In September 2013, Robin told Parade magazine: 'The idea of having a steady job is appealing. I have two [other] choices: go on the road doing stand-up, or do small, independent movies working almost for scale [minimum union pay].

'The movies are good, but a lot of times they don’t even have distribution. There are bills to pay. My life has downsized, in a good way. I’m selling the ranch up in Napa. I just can’t afford it anymore.'

The ranch he referred to was the 640-acre Napa Valley property that he originally quietly listed in 2012 for $35 million, but was officially put up for sale in April this year for $29.9 million.

Dubbed Villa Sorriso - Villa of Smiles - the estate is tucked into the Mayacamas Mountains between Napa and Sonoma. Today, a source confirmed to MailOnline the property has not yet been sold and remains on the market.

And yes, there were bills to pay. Robin's two divorces - his first from Valerie Velardi in 1988 and the second from Marsha Garces in 2008 - had reportedly wrecked his finances and cost him $30 million, according to sources including ABC News.

When asked if he had lost all his fortune, the father-of-three told Parade: 'Well, not all. Lost enough. Divorce is expensive. I used to joke they were going to call it ‘all the money,’ but they changed it to ‘alimony.’ It’s ripping your heart out through your wallet. Are things good with my exes? Yes. But do I need that lifestyle? No.'

And asked why he had chosen to star in films like Patch Adams and Old Dogs, he said: 'It paid the bills. Sometimes you have to make a movie to make money...You know what you're getting into, totally. You know they're going to make it goofy. And that's OK.'

In The Crazy Ones, Robin starred alongside Buffy actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, who played his uptight daughter, and the pair took to the stage in May 2013 to sell the show to advertisers at the annual TV Upfronts.

The actor soon had advertisers eating out of the palm of his hand as the session descended into one of his trademark frenetic stand-up routines. 

He joked about strippers and likened the upfronts to the Westminster Kennel Club dog show 'but with more agents, and a little less ass-sniffing'.

As Robin reminded them, 'It’s been a long time since I’ve been on TV, 30 years, when there were much simpler upfronts - and a mound of coke.'

As filming started on The Crazy Ones, Robin seemed to be back on form, posting pictures from the set on Twitter and Instagram.

The series debuted to stellar ratings, with 15.6 million viewers it was the most-watched series premiere of the fall. However, viewers deserted the show and on May 10, CBS announced it was not picking up the show for a second season. 

This news is believed to have left Robin reeling.

oday, a source told Radar: 'Robin slipped into a deep depression. He felt embarrassed and humiliated that the show had been a failure. It was very hard for Robin to accept. Here he was in his sixties, and forced to take a role on television for the money. It’s just not where he thought he would be at this point in his life.'

'There was also frustration that Robin expressed at having to take television and movie roles he didn’t want to take, but had to for the paycheck,” the source said, referencing his recently announced decision to film Mrs. Doubtfire 2. 'Doing sequels was never Robin’s thing, and he wasn’t that excited at having to reprise the role of Mrs. Doubtfire, which was scheduled to start filming later this year.'

Indeed, weeks after the show was cancelled, Robin, who had struggled with alcoholism for decades and battled cocaine abuse in the 1980s, checked into rehab at the Hazeldon Addiction Treatment Center in Minnesota.

At the time, his spokeswoman said, 'After working back-to-back projects, Robin is simply taking the opportunity to fine-tune and focus on his continued commitment, of which he remains extremely proud.'

Today, a source told TMZ that his stint in rehab came too late, saying; 'Just before he checked in [to rehab] it was obvious ... he had not gotten treatment for so long he was too far down the road.' While another said he had been 'internalizing all the pain of addiction and it was obvious to anyone who was around him.'

In his 2013 interview with Parade, the star told how he had relapsed into drinking in 2003 -  20 years after getting sober - while filming The Big White on location in Alaska.

He recalled: 'One day I walked into a store and saw a little bottle of Jack Daniel’s. And then that voice  - I call it the ‘lower power’- goes, ‘Hey. Just a taste. Just one.’ I drank it, and there was that brief moment of ‘Oh, I’m okay!’ But it escalated so quickly. Within a week I was buying so many bottles I sounded like a wind chime walking down the street. I knew it was really bad one Thanksgiving when I was so drunk they had to take me upstairs.'

And he revealed that his family had stepped in in 2006 and told him to go to rehab, admitting: 'It was not an intervention so much as an ultimatum. Everyone kind of said, ‘You’ve got to do this.’ And I went, ‘Yeah, you’re right.’'

In an outtake from the interview, he discussed attending Alcoholics Anonymous, saying, 'I felt so good about the first AA meeting I attended that I went out and drank the next day.' He was persuaded to come back after a friend encouraged him, saying, 'Hey, we don't shoot our wounded. Come back.

He described how feelings of loneliness and fear that pushed him back towards alcohol at that time, telling The Guardian in September 2010: 'I was in a small town where it's not the edge of the world, but you can see it from there, and then I thought: drinking. I just thought, hey, maybe drinking will help. Because I felt alone and afraid. It was that thing of working so much, and going f***, maybe that will help. And it was the worst thing in the world.'

Asked about that first drink he said: 'You feel warm and kind of wonderful. And then the next thing you know, it's a problem, and you're isolated.'

Asked whether it was the death of his longtime friend, Superman actor Christopher Reeve in October 2004, that sent him back to drink, Robin said: 'No, it's more selfish than that. It's just literally being afraid.

'And you think, oh, this will ease the fear. And it doesn't." What was he afraid of? "Everything. It's just a general all-round arggghhh. It's fearfulness and anxiety.'

It had been previously been reported that the star paid for all of Reeve's medical bills after the actor was left a quadriplegic after being thrown from a horse during an equestrian competition in 1995. However, Robin continued to deny this, saying in 1999: 'We bought Chris a van and a generator. It was really frightening because where Chris and his family live in Connecticut the winters are very harsh. 

'One night the generator they had for Chris crapped out, so there was Chris's wife Dana outside in the middle of the night trying to hand-crank the thing. Now Chris has his own income because of his book, his record and various other sources so he's financially independent and pays his own bills.'

Robin didn't take up cocaine again, he claimed: 'because 'I knew that would kill me....No. Cocaine - paranoid and impotent, what fun. There was no bit of me thinking, ooh, let's go back to that. Useless conversations until midnight, waking up at dawn feeling like a vampire on a day pass. No.'

He quit drugs before the birth of his oldest son Zachary, now 31, saying:  'I didn’t do rehab or AA. I just stopped.

'I didn’t want to be coked out, going, ‘Here’s a little switch – Daddy’s going to throw up on you!’ I wanted to be a participating parent.'

When he relapsed back into alcoholism, however, he said, it only took a week of drinking before he knew he was in trouble, admitting: 'For that first week you lie to yourself, and tell yourself you can stop, and then your body kicks back and says, no, stop later. And then it took about three years, and finally you do stop.'

Despite saying he had no plans to marry again, insisting: '‘Instead of getting married again, I’m going to find a woman I don’t like and just give her my house.' he wed Susan Schneider in 2011. Upon his death, she referred to him as her 'best friend'.

Robin's net worth at the time of his death was reportedly around $50 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth, although it has been estimated as high as $130 million. His home in Tiburon, California, where he took his life yesterday is said to be worth $10 million.

Wary of his issues with money, the entertainment legend made sure his kids would be financially stable when he created a trust in 2009 which outlined a series of money disbursements to his three kids, TMZ reports.

Payment did not rely on whether Robin died because the document detailed a series of individual payments his children would begin receiving when they each turned 21-years-old.

Once 21, each child would receive 1/3 of the share, followed by a payment at 25-years-old of half the money that remained in the trust. At 30, they would each get their entire share in full.

Zachary has already received his entire sum, while his sister Zelda, 25, and brother Cody, 22, have yet to be paid the rest of their money from the trust, according to TMZ.

It is unclear how much money was set aside for his kids, but Robin is believed to have kept a considerable amount of his wealth outside of the trust, which his current wife Susan Schneider could see exclusively.

In the wake of his tragic suicide, Williams left behind four upcoming movies that have yet to be released.

He will be making his third appearance as Teddy Roosevelt in the third installment of “Night at the Museum” titled “Secret of the Tomb,” which is set to be released in December.

The actor was also slated to star in “Boulevard,” and “Merry Friggin’ Christmas,” as well as lend his voice as Dennis the Dog in “Absolutely Nothing'.

With the reams of tributes following his death yesterday, Robin made it clear he did not mind the modern grief industry, telling The Guardian: 'Well, I think people want it. In a weird way, it's trying to keep hope alive...In America they really do mythologise people when they die.'

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