A Canadian actress who says she is physically healthy but living with severe mental illness is asking a court to allow her to die through assisted suicide.
Claire Brosseau, 49, a Montreal-based actress who has appeared in dozens of films alongside stars including James Franco, said she has been unable to leave her home for months due to severe bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“It’s unbearable. Every morning I wake up, I don’t think I’m going to make it through the day,” Brosseau said outside the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Monday, May 4, according to the Canadian Press.
Brosseau said she turned to the courts after multiple past suicide attempts, including overdosing on drugs, cutting her wrists and consuming peanuts, to which she is severely allergic, according to The New York Times.
Despite describing her life as having “an embarrassment of riches,” including close friends, a supportive family and a beloved Maltipoo named Olive, she said she can no longer endure what she called “unrelenting suffering.”
“This is an extraordinary remedy which we are pursuing, but the situation that Claire finds herself in is also extraordinary,” her lawyer, Michael Fenrick, said, adding that he hopes a court date will be set before summer.
Brosseau’s parents and sister said they were distressed when she first shared her plans, noting that current laws prohibit assisted dying for individuals without a qualifying physical illness.
“I was furious. I really saw it as giving up,” her sister, Melissa Morris, 51, told The New York Times.
Her mother, Mary Louise Kinahan, said, “No mother ever wants to lose a child before them, but no mother wants to see incredible suffering.”
One of Brosseau’s psychiatrists, Dr. Mark Fefergrad, expressed hope for her recovery. “I believe she can get well. I don’t think assisted suicide is the best or only choice for her,” he said.
Her other psychiatrist, Dr. Gail Robinson, said she hopes Brosseau changes her mind but respects her autonomy. “I would hope that she would not have to do this. But I will support her,” she said.
Brosseau has spoken about struggling with suicidal thoughts since childhood, recalling writing in a diary at age eight that she hoped to die and later sitting on train tracks as a young person.
In an open letter published last year, she said she has tried more than two dozen medications, as well as various forms of therapy and electroconvulsive treatment, without success.
She has been seeking access to euthanasia since 2021 under Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) framework. In 2024, she and advocacy group Dying with Dignity filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government, arguing that excluding people whose sole underlying condition is mental illness is unconstitutional.
Brosseau, who is single and has no children, is seeking a constitutional exemption that would allow her to access assisted dying despite not having a physical illness.
She said she would consider dying in a hospital so she could donate her organs, but prefers to be alone in her final moments to spare her loved ones additional trauma.
“And it’s been too much already,” she told The New York Times. “It’s enough.”
