By the time Patrice O’Neal took the stage at Comedy Central’s 2011 roast of Charlie Sheen, he seemed genuinely bothered by some of the things his fellow roasters had to say about him. In response to William Shatner’s joke about Sheen waiting to get into the right projects like O’Neal’s family, O’Neal said, “You’re a f—king —hole, Captain Kirk!” He also took a moment to address all the references people made to his diabetes that night, including Amy Schumer’s line about the roast serving as a farewell party for O’Neal’s foot. “I’m dying of diabetes and you motherf—kers are like, ‘Oh, that evil fat f—k,’” O’Neal told the dais at one point.
Many made note of how well O’Neal did at Sheen’s roast, especially considering that he didn’t rely solely on prewritten material. “He had to go from his guts,” fellow comedian Robert Kelly recalled, pointing out that any other comic would’ve been finished if they’d gone the same route as O’Neal. For his part, O’Neal explained that he’d been practicing his entire life to be okay when facing the possibility of failure. Even all these years later, O’Neal’s set is singled out as the highlight of the show.
Patrice O’Neal Had a Tearful Conversation About Death With William Shatner Two Months Before He Died
But O’Neal’s interactions with Shatner weren’t all bad. According to Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, who spoke to Shatner after the broadcast, Shatner and his wife ran into O’Neal outside that evening, and their final encounter with him somehow managed to be both heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time. As the three waited for their cars together, they had a brief chat regarding O’Neal’s health. “It was a strange place to have a conversation about life and death,” Shatner remembered, “but it was presaged by his clarity at the roast.”
Shatner and his wife reminded O’Neal that diabetes wasn’t like cancer and that there were ways that he could reverse the effects of the disease. O’Neal was reportedly moved by this, and as the three parted ways, every single one of them was in tears. “He knew that he was dying, that he was a dying man, and in a way, he wanted to die,” Shatner said. “That’s what I saw. That’s why we cried.”
O’Neal died two months later from complications of a stroke, which was caused by type 2 diabetes. He was 41 years old.
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