Howie Mandel reveals he ‘almost died’ amid self-medicating during COVID anxiety: ‘Couldn’t wake me up’

Joey NolfiTue, August 25, 2026 at 1:54 PM UTC

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Howie Mandel at ‘AGT’ comedy showcaseCredit: Michael S. Schwartz/GettyKey Points -

America’s Got Talent judge and comedian Howie Mandel revealed he “almost died” during the COVID pandemic.

The 70-year-old germaphobe said he self-medicated to cope with anxiety during the global pandemic.

He recalled his wife being unable to wake him up, and that she considered taking him to the hospital at the time.

Known germaphobe Howie Mandel has opened up about nearly dying amid what he said was a concerning self-medicating phase during the COVID pandemic.

In a recent interview on Hoda Kotb’s Joy 101 podcast (below), the 70-year-old America’s Got Talent judge and comedian revealed that his anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder led him down a dark path as the world grappled with the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

“I’m medicated and I have a lot of therapy. I have such a fear of those lows, because they’re incredibly painful and hard to navigate, so my life consists of trying to balance up here and manage the medication,” Mandel said after the Today alum inquired about how he copes with the ups and downs on his mental health journey. “I’ve medicated myself, and I’m talking about prescription medication, I’m not self-medicating, though I did that during COVID and I almost died. So, I’m medicated. I’m surrounded by professionals.”

Though he told Kotb that keeping an extremely busy schedule helps distract him from “dark, reoccurring thoughts” that often pop up during his “mind’s resting place,” Kotb asked him to elaborate on what he meant when he brought up self-medicating.

“I’m sober right now, but during the pandemic I couldn’t sleep because part of my rumination is — I make fun of it — but I’m a germaphobe, and a pandemic? I live like I’m in a pandemic anyhow. When there’s a real one, it was hard for me to handle,” Mandel explained. “It was hard for a lot of people, but I wasn’t strong enough to handle it. I couldn’t sleep, so I started taking gummies to go to sleep.”

He said that taking gummies led to smoking and drinking at the same time, because he “was just trying to escape and make myself unconscious” during the pandemic.

“There were times when my wife, she couldn’t wake me up or she thought she was going to take me to the hospital,” recalled Mandel. “There’s no middle ground with me. I don’t smoke or I haven’t had a beer, anything, I can’t do anything in moderation. It wasn’t healthy and it wasn’t good. It’s not an excuse, but it was really bad.”

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Entertainment Weekly has reached out to Mandel’s representatives for additional comment.

Mandel explained that his OCD also led to other extremes outside of the pandemic, including constructing an entire guest home near his main house so that he could escape there over something as little as one of his family members sneezing indoors.

Howie MandelCredit: Amanda Edwards/Getty

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His wife of more four decades, Terry, “got me to therapy through an ultimatum,” he admitted.

“Finally, my wife just went, ‘I can’t do this, this is really tiring, go talk to somebody,’” Mandel said. “The ultimatum was, try to find some help, because I can’t do this anymore. She’s a hero because she put up with it and sent me to therapy.”

Listen to Mandel recount his near-death experience during the COVID pandemic in Kotb’s podcast episode above.

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