Kelly Rizzo is opening up about the difficulty of dating after losing her spouse. Rizzo, 45, took to Instagram on Wednesday to talk about her struggles dating after the untimely death of her late husband, Bob Saget. Saget died on Jan. 9, 2022, at age 65. The Full House star and celebrated comedian was found unresponsive in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, Florida. His cause of death was later revealed to be accidental head trauma.
“Dating after losing your spouse. So crazy how controversial of a topic this is,” Rizzo said in her Instagram Reel while making a pesto panini. “When I lost Bob two and a half years ago, even the thought of moving forward — not moving on, moving forward — gave me so much anxiety. What will people think? What will my loved ones think? What will Bob’s loved ones think? What will the public think? It’s a weird thing I had to worry about. What would Bob think? Finally, who’s ever going to want to date a widow? I hate that word.”
When Rizzo began dating her current boyfriend, Breckin Meyer, she faced criticism from people suggesting that she was dating too soon after the death of her husband. But Rizzo has defended her choice to find love two years after Saget died.
The Comfort Food podcast host continued in the clip, “So I’ve actually been very fortunate to have all the support in the world from my family and friends, Bob’s family and friends. Yes, even the public has been lovely except for a couple negative comments. I was very fortunate to find someone who is so kind and compassionate and understanding about the whole situation. Literally someone where the joke is actually, ‘this is the one person on Earth that Bob wouldn’t be that mad about.'”
Rizzo’s relationship with the Clueless actor, 50, was confirmed in February, and the couple went Instagram official in May. Now, she’s asking people to stop judging widows for moving forward and to instead support them.
“But here’s the point – there is absolutely no room for anyone to judge,” she said. “This is a very complex situation. A lot of complicated feelings. Unless you’ve ever actually been through it, you just really do not understand what it’s like.”
She concluded, “So if you’re a person who has lost someone, just understand that you have a lot more support out there than you think. And if you have someone in your life who has lost somebody and is going through the difficult time of trying to figure out the best way for them to move forward, the best thing that you can do is just to love them and support them and be there for them.”
Comments were flooded with support of Rizzo addressing such a hard topic, with many of her followers sharing similar stories.
Kelly Rizzo is trying not to let her painful past influence her present. The 44-year-old widow of the late Bob Saget recently went public with her first relationship since the comedian’s death in 2022.
Rizzo is dating Clueless actor Breckin Meyer, and explained the struggles she’s faced in the new romance on The Blonde Files Podcast.
“I had these three huge relationships in my life where the rug was ripped out from under me with no warning and where it wasn’t like I had done something to provoke this,” Rizzo explained, detailing her first marriage, a painful breakup and Saget’s shocking death. “That’s something that I’m trying now with my current relationship and god bless him that he doesn’t have to be faced with every day. This is something that I put on my sister or my friends, but having that fear of just even when things seem great, the rug can just get ripped out from under you. So that’s my biggest challenge in the relationship sense of just trying to move forward and not carry the past trauma.”
Saget died on Jan. 9, 2022. He was found dead in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, Florida, and his cause of death was from an accidental head trauma. The Full House star was 65. During her podcast interview, Rizzo explained how she began the process of contemplating dating after Saget’s death.
“The first few times you even start thinking about it, even if it’s a year later, you’re like, ‘I feel like I’m cheating on him.’ Just by even thinking about this,” Rizzo admitted.
She said she “really turned a big corner” after getting the blessing of Saget’s three daughters — Aubrey, Lara and Jennifer, whom he shared with ex-wife Sherri Kramer.
Rizzo added that she also had to reconcile the fact that Saget would have wanted her to be happy.
“Earthly Bob would have been like, ‘How dare you.’ Heavenly Bob would have wanted me to be happy,” she said.
And while she appreciated the “overwhelming love and support from the public” surrounding her new relationship, Rizzo noted, “Ultimately, all that mattered to me, 100 percent, were his girls and if I felt ready.”
Rizzo has been open about her grief journey, discussing her highs and lows on her own podcast, Comfort Food.
“It’s a journey,” Rizzo told ET in 2023. “I’m just living my world of gratitude, just grateful for life now and the life that I had and the life that Bob and I shared.”
A source also tells ET that “Kelly and Breckin are really happy and cute together.”
“They make a great couple, have natural chemistry, are loving and supportive, and make each other laugh,” the source adds. “Their loved ones are supportive and are glad to see Kelly get back to a better place after struggling with the loss of Bob.”
Kelly Rizzo talks to “Extra’s” Billy Bush about her journey with grief after the death of husband Bob Saget, revealing that she is “open” to the idea of dating.
She also dishes on pushing herself to the limits on “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test,” airing Mondays on FOX.
Billy asked, “Where are you in your grieving process?”
Kelly explained, “I’m still just coming from a place of gratitude. Just being so grateful for the time I had with Bob. When he left a mark on this world like he did and left an incredible legacy that’s really all you can hope for out of life and he accomplished that and he did that.”
As for survivor’s guilt, Rizzo shared, “You feel guilty if you have happy moments or if you’re not feeling sad all the time. You feel guilty about that, but then I learned that’s very normal… Now that enough time has passed, even his girls are always like… ‘That’s silly. Heavenly Bob wants you to be happy.’ Earthly Bob would’ve been like… ‘Not too happy.’”
Can she accept a date if someone asks her out? Kelly said, “I’m open to it, yes.”
As for joining “Special Forces,” she said, “When you go through a loss of a loved one, you don’t feel that strong because you’re in it. You don’t really have that perspective. But when everyone is telling you you have this incredible strength. You’re like… ‘Alright, let’s put it to the test.’”
Kelly said even sleeping on the show was a challenge. “You’re in a room with 14 people and people are snoring and people are tossing and turning.”
Billy wondered, “Who snored?” She dished, “Tara Reid and Tom Sandoval snored a lot.”
It turns out Kelly didn’t know much about Scandoval prior to meeting Tom.
She said, “I’d seen some things on social media, but I didn’t even know what he looked like, necessarily. But then… the first night he was opening up about his struggle and how difficult it’s been for him. I said… ‘Look, buddy, we’re all in the same boat here. Consider this your fresh start, a clean slate. We’re all equals here. Nobody’s judging anybody. Let’s start from scratch.’ And he was really appreciative of that.”
Source: ET, Extra
