Amy Schumer Dishes on the Hardships of Caring for Her ‘Unhappy’ MS-Stricken Father Who Is in Assisted Living: ‘We Still Have Beautiful Moments’

“My dad is in assisted living,” she shared. “He has MS and has been in a wheelchair for a long time now, and he’s really unhappy. He has short-term memory loss. I’ll leave and he’ll call me right after and ask when I’m going to come visit.”

Amy Schumer and her father still share tender moments.

“My dad is still making me laugh,” she noted of their current relationship. “We still have beautiful moments. He’ll say ‘put on this song,’ and we’ll listen to it and he’ll cry. And then I’ll love that song, and he’ll talk about some memories he had.”

Amy Schumer realized her father would need a wheelchair after stumbling on vacation.

She went on to share memories of their times together.

“My dad was obsessed with me and my sister,” Schumer gushed. “My memories of him singing to me at night, telling me stories, body surfing with him. The ocean was a really big thing for us.”

It wasn’t until a family vacation that the comedian realized he was going to need long-term care.

“He was losing his balance and it was clear he was going to have to be in a wheelchair from then on,” she explained. “We went bodysurfing and it was clear it was going to be the last time. He was stumbling in the ocean and I knew that part of our life was over. It was really sad and painful.”

Amy Schumer turned to humor to cope with a difficult childhood.

It gave her pause to realize the unpredictability of life.

“These things that you love can be just taken away from you,” she expressed. “It made me think, there’s really no rhyme or reason. He’s always in and out of the hospital.”

Amy Schumer still finds joy with her son, Gene Fischer.

Her father’s multiple sclerosis, in addition to her mom leaving him, made for some of Schumer’s most painful years, but she turned to comedy to cope. That era informed the over-the-top and outrageous nature of her humor.

“[Ages] 9 to 12 years old was really bad,” she said. “[I was] just thinking, ‘What’s the worst thing I could say right now? What’s the most inappropriate? How do we make this moment funny?’ And that was how I survived and how I kept my family going.”