America’s Got Talent’s Howie Mandel reveals daughter Jackie Shultz also suffers from anxiety and OCD
Howie Mandel says his daughter Jackie Shultz has anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, conditions he has battled for decades.
The America’s Got Talent judge, 65, and his daughter, 36, spoke to People Wednesday about the family’s mental health awareness, as Shultz, like her father, has a fear of germs that has been intensified amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Shultz, who has two children, Abbey, six, and Axel, five, with her husband Alex, said that the pandemic ‘was really, really hard’ to deal with, as her anxiety sometimes leads to depression.
The latest: Howie Mandel, 65, says his daughter Jackie Shultz, 36, has anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, conditions he has battled for decades
‘I went through the extreme and I just locked myself in,’ she said. ‘I’ve been isolated and scared for a year and a half and now that things are starting to open back up, I’m really not at the same place that most people are.
Shultz said she’s ‘working with a therapist to get back out into the world’ as things reopen in the wake of vaccinations.
She added that talking with her father about her mental health can be ‘helpful,’ as her ‘dad is very open about going to therapy and erasing the stigma.’
Mandel said he’s ‘not proud of that gift [he’s] given her … but our coping skills are to find the light.’
On the red carpet: The veteran entertainer was snapped arriving at AGT in LA in 2020
Stalwart: Shultz said her famous father has been a stable presence in her life, adding, ‘Whenever I was upset or sad or having a bad day, I knew I could reach out’
Family: Shultz has two children, Abbey, six, and Axel, five, with her husband Alex
Shultz said her famous father has been a stable presence in her life, adding, ‘Whenever I was upset or sad or having a bad day, I knew I could reach out.’
Mandel said he and his daughter ‘couldn’t be closer’ these days, though faced tougher times when she was a teenager, as he said their issues ‘kind of ripped [them] apart.’
Shultz said that Mandel’s overprotectiveness and constant probing created a rift between them in those times.
‘There were a lot of control issues about me being safe, like, where was I, what did I get into, what did I touch?’ she said. ‘He was strict. And there was a lot of hovering. We had trouble getting along in those times.’
The pair now appear on a podcast called Howie Mandel Does Stuff, which they launched this past February.
‘It came out of a necessity of trying to connect with my child,’ he said. ‘We spend hours a day trying to make each other laugh.’