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Patton Oswalt: Actor’s Wife, Michelle McNamara, Died In Her Sleep The Same Day As Prince

By Jonathan Franks
Published on: 14:12 PST, Apr 22, 2016

Michelle McNamara, the wife of actor Patton Oswalt, reportedly passed away Thursday.

Us Weekly reports that the 46-year-old writer died in her sleep. According to the report, Patton’s rep confirmed the tragic news with the Associated Press but did not give a cause of death.

Patton Oswalt and Michelle Eileen McNamara first became husband and wife in September of 2005, which means the couple reached their 10th anniversary milestone last fall. Patton and Michelle became parents when they welcomed their firstborn daughter, Alice Rigney Oswalt, into the world on April 15, 2009.

In an interview with the AV Club in August, 2009, Patton Oswalt opened up about how fatherhood made it a little more difficult for him to focus on his stand-up comedy.

“In a weird way, it’s made it much harder, because I’m so focused on my child and how crazy I am about her. There are things I used to get worried about and worked up about. Now I have almost this cool dismissiveness… Now my managers or agents will call me up and they’ll be like, ‘They want you to go do this’ and I’m just like, ‘No, I’m going to sit at home with my kid. I just want to watch her lying around in her Gymboree, playing.'”

Oswalt further explained that he was not becoming some sort of rebel. However, becoming a father to Alice helped to realize that there was a lot of things that were so unimportant that he just did not care anymore – “especially with things like [his] acting or…stand-up.”

In the years that have passed since his daughter was born, Patton Oswalt has released three comedy albums, including My Weakness is Strong(2009), Finest Hour(2011), and Tragedy Plus Comedy Equals Time(2014).

His newest comedy special, Patton Oswalt: Talking for Clapping, debuted on Netflix on Friday.

In a recent interview with IGN, Oswalt reflected on how his comedy has changed over the years as he has gotten older.

“You don’t want to be in your late 40s still doing bits about living life like a 20 year old… Like, ‘Okay, we heard all these insights from you but did you go and explore what life has to offer both good and bad?’ You kind of want that form, for lack of a better term, as an artist rather than just covering the same topics over and over again.”

Patton Oswalt’s wife, Michelle McNamara, was the writer and founder of the website True Crime Diary, a site that examines cold murder cases.

According to Us Weekly, it was actually her husband that gave Michelle the idea to start the website in the first place.

In a 2007 interview, McNamara opened up to Suicide Girls about the purpose of her website, claiming that she “wanted to get more involved in the cases” instead of just fueling her own curiosity. Instead of searching for high-profile cases, McNamara admittedly focused on “the ones that really don’t get that much attention” since they were the cases with the most potentially undiscovered material.

Thursday, April 21, almost marked the day that music legend Prince was pronounced dead — a tragedy that Patton Oswalt paid tribute to with a number of tweets and photos within hours of the confirmed reports of his death.

According to Us Weekly, Patton Oswalt has yet to publicly address the recent passing of his wife.

[Image Credit: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images]

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