Jay Glazer said he still has suicidal ideations and self-harms to this day, laying bare a struggle he says he manages by leaning on his wife, Rosie, and Michael Phelps. He posted the message on World Suicide Prevention Day, saying he wanted the chance it could help someone else choose life.
The 56-year-old said he made the post knowing the risk. He said he had been hesitant because the last time he shared similar thoughts on X, he was hit with harsh comments, but that he decided this message was worth the backlash if it reached even one person who needed it.
In the video, Glazer said he has had suicidal thoughts “a lot” and often felt that people were better off without him. He said the way through those moments is not complicated: he asks Rosie to tell him she is not going anywhere. He said she was the first person who ever asked what he needs from her when he is in that place, and that simple question changed how he experiences support.
That conversation widened when Phelps joined in by FaceTime. Glazer said he and the 23-time Olympic gold medalist regularly call each other when they are struggling, and he described Phelps as like a brother. During the exchange, Glazer asked, “Give me your unbreakable moment?” Phelps replied, “It’s probably the moment of not wanting to be alive.”
The honesty cut through the usual public language around mental health. Glazer said he has bipolar meltdowns and that he “self-harm[s], to this day,” even as he said he has made a commitment not to kill himself and to choose life again every day. He said the point is to stop treating vulnerability as weakness and to use it as a way to be of service to others.
Glazer has talked before about depression, including in his 2022 memoir Unbreakable. He also said Phelps does a similar thing in their calls, with each man trying to interrupt the other before the spiral deepens. That matters because the message was not a polished public-service announcement. It was a live look at how he says he survives, and at how fragile that survival still is.
For Glazer, the next step is already set: keep making the same decision. He said years ago he chose life and now has to make that choice again and again, a promise that leaves the central question not whether he knows the stakes, but whether he can keep carrying them one day at a time.
