Lisa Rinna opened up about the deeply personal circumstances surrounding her father Frank Rinna’s 2016 death at age 94, revealing he passed away through assisted suicide.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, 61, shared the emotional revelation during the latest episode of her Let’s Not Talk About the Husband podcast, which she co-hosts with husband Harry Hamlin.
Frank died in Oregon, where the state’s 1997 Death with Dignity Act allows terminally ill patients to end their lives with medical assistance, including help from so-called ‘death doulas.’
‘In Oregon, you’re permitted to check out when you want to check out,’ said Harry, 73. ‘He was 94, and his quality of life had diminished to the point where he wanted to transition. You can do that in Oregon if you follow the right guidelines and the protocols and talk to the right number of doctors.’
Lisa added, ‘You have to have two doctors that sign off on your terminal illness, so to speak,’ noting that the process took her father ‘about three to six months’ to complete.
‘I never told this story at the time,’ she admitted. ‘I had started the [RHOBH] show, and I think it was just too painful at the time.’
Lisa Rinna opened up about the deeply personal circumstances surrounding her father Frank Rinna’s 2016 death at age 94, revealing he passed away through assisted suicide
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, 61, shared the emotional revelation during the latest episode of her Let’s Not Talk About the Husband podcast, which she co-hosts with husband Harry Hamlin
Frank died in Oregon , where the state’s 1997 Death with Dignity Act allows terminally ill patients to end their lives with medical assistance, including help from so-called ‘death doulas’
Rinna described the moment she watched her father die at a hospice as a ‘surreal.’
With her half-sister and a ‘death doula’ by his side, she recalled feeling detached from reality: ‘I didn’t feel like I was in my body,’ she said.
She explained that under Oregon law, the person choosing assisted death must physically take the medication themselves.
‘The person that’s dying has to be able to pick up the juice, or whatever, to drink it themselves. You can’t administer it to somebody.’
According to Rinna, her father was ‘so mad’ when his death was postponed by two days due to a delay in receiving the medication.
‘He was in pain and he was really unhappy,’ she said.
Calling the moment a ‘surreal position’ to be in, the RHOBH alum admitted the emotional toll of watching a parent die by choice. ‘
‘You want to support what they want to do, but you’re going to watch your parent kill themselves,’ she said. ‘That’s what we’re doing. But he wanted it so badly.’
‘I never told this story at the time,’ Lisa admitted, adding, ‘I had started the [RHOBH] show, and I think it was just too painful at the time.’
‘In Oregon, you’re permitted to check out when you want to check out,’ said Harry, 73. ‘He was 94, and his quality of life had diminished to the point where he wanted to transition. You can do that in Oregon if you follow the right guidelines and the protocols and talk to the right number of doctors’ (seen in 2024)
Lisa said Frank passed away about 45 minutes after drinking the medication.
‘They just go to sleep, by the way. It’s not anything gruesome,’ she said, adding that his death was ‘very peaceful.’
‘It was a very humane way to go,’ she added. ‘In that aspect, it didn’t feel awful, but it felt awful.’
Rinna famously left RHOBH in 2023 while grappling with the loss of her mother Lois, making her return to such raw family memories all the more poignant.
Oregon became the first US state to allow physician-assisted suicide in 1997, allowing terminally ill adult Oregonians, with less than six months left to live, to ask doctors for a fatal dose of drugs they then administer themselves, typically at home.
In 2023, it became the first US state to allow non-residents to travel to the West Coast state to end their lives.
Physician-assisted death, also known as medical aid in dying, is currently legal in 10 US states and Washington, D.C.: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.
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