‘The Talk’ Co-Host Marie Osmond Reflects on Son Michael’s Tragic Suicide: ‘I Don’t Think You’re Ever Through It’

Marie Osmond kicks off her tenure as co-host on The Talk this Monday. But before she takes the seat left vacant by departing host Sara Gilbert, the longtime entertainer sat alongside brother Donny for an interview on CBS Sunday Morning.

While the siblings were quick to laugh about their careers and gloat about their family lives, the only sister in the Osmond clan opened up about the darker aspects of her past. This includes a backstage abuse incident she never mentioned until the release of her book Behind the Smile in 2001, and the loss of her son Michael to suicide in 2010.

Michael was one of Osmond’s eight children according to PEOPLE, adopting him along with five other children with her second husband Brian Blosil. His suicide came in February 2010 after he jumped from the eighth-floor balcony of his apartment building in Los Angeles.

As Osmond tells CBS, she’s not sure you can ever just get “through” something like the suicide death of a child.

“I think God gives you respites, and then all of a sudden it’ll hit you like the day it did. The ripple effect is so huge, what you leave behind,” Osmond said during the interview.

As PEOPLE notes, Michael had entered rehab in 2007 for undisclosed reasons and had shown immense improvement by 2009 according to a statement from his mother to the outlet.

“My son Michael is an amazing young man, shown through his courage in facing his issues,” Osmond said.

The singer and TV personality shared details about what led to Michael’s suicide, telling Oprah in November 2010 that her son had been dealing with depression and that she attempted to use her own battle with the illness to get him on the right path.

“When I heard him say to me, I have no friends, it brought back when I went through depression, because you really feel so alone,” Osmond told the TV host. “I’m not a depressed person, but I understand that place, that darkness … I told him, I said, ‘Mike, I’m gonna be there Monday and it’s gonna be OK.’ But depression doesn’t wait ’til Monday.”

She calls his suicide the “hardest thing I’ve been through” and reveals the constant struggle with the “what ifs” of the situation, shaking it off by saying that living in “what ifs” leads you to “stop living.”

“You cry until you can’t cry, and then you cry some more,” she wrote in her 2013 book The Key is Love, with PEOPLE noting the moment she got the news was like someone running “a knife into my heart.”

Despite the heavy way the interview led, the majority was fun and hopeful for her future on The Talk. While she’s new to the show, she’s certainly not new to being in front of the camera. She’ll also host while keeping up with her Las Vegas residency alongside her brother.

“I think I am going to enjoy this life,” she told Entertainment Tonight after the news was announced. “That’s really part of the wonderful thing. I get to get up in the morning and be done by noon, and actually have dinner with my husband for a chance, which will be a beautiful thing. [I get to] see my grandkids and I can do other projects.”

If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).