RHOBH's Sutton Stracke Reveals Late Father's Depression and Substance Abuse Led to Suicide: 'Miss Him Everyday'

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo:Griffin Nagel/Bravo via Getty

Griffin Nagel/Bravo via Getty

OnThe Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, the reality star, 53, looked back at some of her painful history while visiting her mother in her hometown of Augusta, Georgia alongside costarsKyle RichardsandGarcelle Beauvais.

While getting ready for the day, Sutton’s memories came flooding back to her after Kyle asked when she began to notice John T.’s health decline.

“I was in my 20s when I got the call, [saying] you need to come home. And it was very surprising for me, I didn’t understand my father, who was our rock, could be starting to break,” she recalled to cameras. “We put him in the hospital twice. I’m talking put him in the car, like shoved him in the car.”

(L) John T. Brown and Sutton Stracke.Sutton Stracke/Instagram

Sutton Stracke/Instagram

She revealed that her father was in a “depressive state” while on anti-depression medication and sleeping pills.

“They had him on all these pills just to try to regulate stuff that wasn’t working,” she explained. “He would go on and off of them for years, and then he would self-medicate with alcohol. He was very confused.”

Sutton recalled how her father would talk about “how he wanted to kill himself” and often didn’t know what day it was. Despite the severity of his chronic depression, she said that he never went to therapy and revealed that his treatment — or lack thereof — was “so disjointed.”

In a conversation with cameras, Sutton couldn’t help but admit that she harbored “a little pent up resentment” towards her.

“So when my dad shot himself, my mother was home. She was in the kitchen,” she recalled. “She knew that he was taking sleeping pills, he was taking Xanax, he was self-medicating with alcohol. There was a loaded gun in the house, and he shot himself right then and there.”

“I loved him so much and miss him every day,” she said as she led Garcelle and Kyle through the kitchen, her old bedroom and her parents room.

When they came to what appeared to be the den, Sutton pointed out a spot on the couch and revealed it was the last place she saw her dad alive.

Sutton Stracke.Elyse Jankowski/Getty

Sutton recalled how she and her father would often high five and clasp each other’s hands for a second before letting go as a greeting. But that night, her dad was “so out of it” that he didn’t put his hand out. Though she thought it was “a little strange,” she didn’t say anything and pulled on his big toe before leaving.

“Those [are] moments where you think, ‘I should have sat with him, or something like beyond the tug toe,'” she cried as Garcelle and Kyle rushed to hug her.

“I wish I’d sat down, even for five minutes, and I feel really bad that I didn’t. That was just so selfish of me,” she added to cameras. “Just five minutes, the last time I saw him.”

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The Real Housewives of Beverly Hillsairs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo.

source: people.com