Kate Spade was under treatment for depression

NEW YORK — Designer Kate Spade, who committed suicide in New York this week, had been treated for depression and anxiety for five years, her husband said Wednesday. “She was actively seeking help for depression and anxiety over the last five years, seeing a doctor on a regular basis and taking medication for both depression and anxiety,” her husband Andy Spade said in a statement carried by The New York Times. It was a blunt rebuke to claims by the designer’s sister that Kate Spade needed mental health care but refused treatment over concerns about potentially hurting the light-hearted brand. The death of the 55-year-old star designer, whose body was found Wednesday in her Park Avenue apartment, “was not unexpected by me,” Spade’s older sister Reta Saffo told The Kansas City Star from her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Celebrity news website TMZ cited police sources as saying Spade had fallen into depression in recent weeks after her husband left her and was seeking divorce. Andy Spade said that the couple had been living apart but in the same neighborhood, caring for their 13-year-old daughter Bea. — AFP