A week and a day after tweeting that he’s taking a hiatus from his daily podcast, Kirk Minihane returned Sunday to record his Monday show for Barstool.
Saturday, Feb. 29, Minihane announced he was entering a treatment program to fight his recent struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts. He returned to the airwaves Monday, describing his depression as an “elephant standing on your chest,” unable to breath or move.
Minihane joined Barstool last May after previously co-hosting WEEI’s popular morning show Kirk & Callahan Show in Boston. His brash, unfiltered style helped Minihane build a very loyal fanbase on WEEI, following him to Barstool.
Twice in 2018, Minihane stepped away from the WEEI morning show for mental health reasons. The first time coming in August, when he checked himself into Winchester Hospital after experiencing suicidal thoughts. Following a brief return, Minihane still didn’t feel right and took a second leave of absence. He ultimately never came back to the Kirk & Callahanshow for varying reasons and left WEEI’s parent company Entercom in May 2019, shortly before joining Barstool.
Having dealt with depression for much of his life, Minihane said he recognizes his mental health ups and downs will continue, but right now, he felt well enough to check in on the show.
“I thought it was important to talk to you guys about it because you guys are great,” Minihane said while expressing gratitude for the amount of people that showed they care. “I understand you’re concerned and you have no idea how much that means, I hope you do, I really hope you do know how much you guys mean to me, the show means to me and knowing that people care,” he continued.
Minihane noted how many people reached out, including his former WEEI co-host Gerry Callahan. Since breaking up in 2018, Kirk and Callahan have reunited a few times on each of their podcasts, but Minihane said he told his former co-host it’s better if they don’t talk anymore.
“There’s a toxic nature to that relationship,” Minihane said. “You get stuck in the past and have the same fights over again, it doesn’t do either one of us any good, it’s not productive anymore so that relationship is over and it’s unfortunate, it’s a casualty of war that neither one of us were really guilty in.”
Minihane plans to appear on his Barstool podcast again this Wednesday, Mar. 11, and estimated returning to the show full-time Monday Mar. 23. His two sold out shows at Boston’s Wilbur Theater, Jun. 20 are still scheduled to go on.