It is near impossible to boldly go where no man has gone before and not end up having a close friendship with your co-star which spans decades. After publishing his memoir "Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man," William Shatner revealed just how much Leonard Nimoy helped him during his most trying times.
Apart from the heartfelt remembrance of his dear friend in his newest book, Shatner went on to the program "Tell Me Everything" and opened up about how his friend helped him try to understand his wife's addiction and eventual death.
"Leonard helped me try to understand, Yes, agony belongs to all of us [...] But there is a special agony for somebody who wants to give up the addiction and can't. The shame that they must feel. The self-degradation," Shatner said.
Nerine Kidd, a model and actress who was married to William Shatner for two years, struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and was found at the bottom of the pool in their home one night in 1999. Nerine's alcohol consumption contributed to her accidental drowning.
Nimoy also personally battled alcohol addiction so he helped Shatner come to terms with the situation and pick up the pieces.
In spite of the duo's eventual falling out in the years leading to Nimoy's passing- Nimoy had stopped talking to Shatner for reasons the latter was unsure of- Shatner still insisted on how much he valued his friend's presence in his life.
"I didn't even know what a friend was. I had never had anyone in my life to whom I could completely emotionally unburden myself," he recalled about the time before he met Nimoy.
Prior to Nimoy's passing in Feb. 2015, Shatner wrote to him but received no response.
"You're the friend that I have known the longest and the deepest," he wrote.
Shatner revealed that not being able to patch things up with his friend before his passing remains to be his greatest regret in life.
