The Little Couple‘s Bill Klein is coming clean about his struggle with depression, admitting in a new interview with HuffPost Live that he once contemplated suicide as a person who suffers from dwarfism. Chatting with HuffPost Live on Tuesday, May 26, Klein and his wife, Dr. Jen Arnold, shared some of the stories included in their new book, Life Is Short (No Pun Intended): Love, Laughter, and Learning to Enjoy Every Moment.
As part of his research for the couple’s book, Klein, 40, told HuffPost Live he interviewed family members and friends to get a third-party perspective on events that shaped his childhood. Oftentimes, Klein and his wife turned to their families to get the accurate details of events they misremembered, like the couple’s very first meeting as 10-year-olds in the same hospital ward. (They later reconnected online as adults and began dating.)
Though Klein tells HuffPost Live some of his favorite memories growing up involved his parents, close family, and friends, the TLC reality star does say his life was “punctuated by times where I was bullied more than I’d like to remember.” As a student at New York University, Klein — who stands at four feet tall as the result of a rare form of skeletal dysplasia called Spondyloepiphyseal Dysplasia — found himself struggling with severe depression and thoughts of suicide.
“In college, I had reached the deepest [pit] of depression and that brought me to the brink,” recalled Klein. “Since then, things have turned around huge for me. My life has gotten better and better every single year. I’ve had bumps along the road every year to deal with, but that said, I hope I can teach my kids to do better than I did when it comes to dealing with people you can’t control.”
Using his experience as a guide, Klein said he strives to instill in his young children, Will, 4, and Zoey, 3, the importance of standing tall in the face of adversity. “I like to think I can police every child my son or daughter will interact with until they’re 45 years old, but that’s not realistic,” he joked to HuffPost Live. “I hope I can arm them with enough intelligence to disseminate the difference between what matters and what doesn’t. Hopefully they’ll be able to understand the difference more quickly and not let it affect them that much. If they do that, I’ll have done everything and more I’d hope and more.”
Speaking of Klein’s adorable toddlers, Klein said Will recently lost his very first tooth! The going rate for tooth fairies in the Texas neighborhood where the family lives: $5! “We didn’t want to be too crazy,” dad told HuffPost Live. “I heard New York and New Jersey’s doing $20 a tooth — I hope my son’s not watching!”
The Little Couple premieres Tuesday, May 26 at 9 p.m. ET on TLC.
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