“I will miss her. RIP Rochelle.”
Comedian Russell Gilbert has posted a heartbreaking tribute to his late fiancée on Instagram, after it was reported that Rochelle Nolan – Gilbert’s partner of 19 years – had been found dead in a Melbourne hotel room.
Gilbert urged others to look out for signs of mental illness after Nolan’s body was found at the Crown Casino hotel on Thursday afternoon.
The Daily Mail reports that Nolan’s death is not being treated as suspicious.
In his post, Gilbert wrote that mental illness was a “part of life” and that he would remember Rochelle “before she got broken”.
Gilbert, who lost his older sister Debbie when he was only 12, said that he “learned how to grieve as a boy” and urged others who are suffering from mental illness to seek help.
Nolan and Gilbert met in the late 90s and moved in together just days later. Although they became engaged three years into their relationship, the couple didn’t plan to marry.
Close friend and newsreader Jen Hansen echoed Gilbert’s sentiments, telling the Herald Sun that it would be hard to imagine life without her.
“I will treasure the memories of our time together always,” Hansen said. “She was the most loyal, supportive and generous friend and her wicked sense of humour always made me laugh.”
If you or someone you know needs help, please reach out to Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit lifeline.org.au.
Top Comments
I find it interesting how it's automatically assumed it's a suicide.
There's simply not enough information out there on what kind of a person Russell is behind closed doors. This could've been an accident that he caused. At least being unable to attend the funeral seems like an admission of guilt, guilt that the public is supposed to see as "grieving".
Why do we automatically assume the "facts" that we are presented with are the 100% truth?
Yep totally agree. Australia has turned into a nanny state where we spend too much time and tax payers money defending people too weak willed to get on with things. We should start a national advertising campaign 'Wakeup and deal with it' .
Assuming it's suicide is just as bad as assuming that there must exist some mean, violent dark side to Russell. It's sad that paranoia and distrust is so rampant in our society that a husband's grief and pain is being doubted in order to substantiate the arbitrary assumption that he must have done something untoward "behind closed doors."
For future reference, whenever you read that someone's death "is not being treated as suspicious" [line 6 of this article], that's just the tactful way of letting the public know that there is no criminal element to the person's death.
Anyway today, sadly, Rochelle's death has been confirmed to be suicide; and Russel's inability to attend the funeral was actually because he was feeling heaps sick (brain aneurysm - a medical emergency requiring immediate surgery.)
Mental illness is often left untreated as the sufferers dislike to be told to take medications and in general do dislike to be told "what to do". Said that it is very difficult for people with mental illness to understand what it is happening to them and thus they are often confused and do isolate themselves from friends and relatives and do have morbid thought often thinking that death is a welcome solution to their suffering.