Patton Oswalt Makes First Statement Following Sudden Death Of Wife

Patton Oswalt, former star of King of Queens and a successful standup comedian on his own, has responded to the sudden death of his wife, Michelle McNamara, after more than a week of laying low.

While it remains unclear what McNamara’s cause of death was, she was reported to have died in her sleep at the age of 46 on April 22, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Beyond retweeting the THR story, Patton Oswalt has kept an understandably low profile since the announcement of his wife’s passing.

McNamara was a crime writer, who preferred focusing on lesser-known murder cases, THR notes. The entertainment news site ran this quote from her at the time of her death.

“It’s the ones that really don’t get that much attention that interest me because I think what’s interesting about them is there’s more stuff to be unearthed that hasn’t been in the public yet and you can do it.”

McNamara graduated from the University of Notre Dame and earned her master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Minnesota. As founder of the website True Crime Diary, she routinely covered both breaking stories and cold cases. She made appearances on the Discovery program’s A Crime to Remember.

With Patton Oswalt, she had a 7-year-old daughter, but when the comedian took to Twitter on Friday night, April 29, to discuss his wife, it was her work that he placed the focus.

She wrote lines that stung & hummed. 13 years in her presence was happily humbling. #RIPMichelleMcNamara https://t.co/bSYWFFD8NY

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) April 29, 2016

The official Patton Oswalt website has yet to release a longer statement, and it is unlikely that it will. Oswalt is a wordsmith, who wouldn’t want to leave it to someone else to honor his wife, and with the responsibility of being a single father now trying to help his daughter understand the situation, fans can expect him to lay low for a while.

At present, there are no upcoming events planned on his site, but die-hards can check out his standup special Patton Oswalt: Talking for Clapping on Netflix Instant at present.

Sadly, the special was released on the day that McNamara was reported dead. It currently holds a 6.9 out of 10 on IMDb.

Aside from the standup special, Oswalt has many other credits on the horizon with a mix of television and features ahead.

Patton Oswalt provides voice-over work for each episode of the hit sitcom The Goldbergs. He also lends vocals to BoJack Horseman, American Dad!, We Bare Bears, and Archer.

As far as features go, 2016 will see him starring in four films, including The Confirmation, Nerdland, The Circle, and FML.

The Confirmation snuck out in March and had Oswalt starring alongside Clive Owen in a comedy about a down-on-his-luck carpenter spending a weekend with his estranged son.

Nerdland was an animated feature that released earlier this month and centered on two best friends, aspiring screenwriter Elliot (Oswalt) and aspiring actor John, whose dreams of super-stardom fizzled in the buildup to their 30th birthdays, causing them to seek new ways of becoming famous (or infamous).

The Circle has entered post-production. It is a sci-fi thriller due out later this year that tells the story of a woman, who lands a job at a powerful tech company called the Circle, where she becomes involved with a mysterious man. Oswalt plays Tom Stenton. The film is based on the Dave Eggers novel.

FML will have Patton Oswalt starring opposite Ken Marino and T.J. Miller in a comedy about a pair of internet stars, who embark on a cross-country road trip through the United States capturing videos of their misadventures along the way. The film is currently in pre-production.

[Image via Helga Esteb/Shutterstock.com]