Kate Spade was “a major alcoholic” whose marriage and life were spiraling out of control well before her suicide, fashion-industry sources told The Post Wednesday.
The handbag designer hanged herself in her home at 850 Park Ave. with a red scarf attached to a doorknob. Her body was found by a housekeeper Tuesday morning.
A suicide note led investigators to believe her fractious marriage to Andy Spade had precipitated her decline.
She and Andy had been living separately for at least six months, according to fashion-industry sources who added that Kate’s drinking had been a problem before the split.
One insider called her “a major alcoholic.”
Kate’s sister, Reta Saffo, told the Kansas City Star newspaper that her younger sibling had suffered from mental-health and substance-abuse problems for years before she and Andy began uncoupling.
Andy, her husband of 24 years and longtime business partner, tried to get her to seek help, but “nothing came of it,” Saffo said.
Andy has denied this, claiming in an open letter published in The New York Times Wednesday that Kate had been seeing a doctor for the past five years and was taking anxiety medication but not abusing alcohol or drugs.
He also said they “never even discussed divorce.”
However, a source told People magazine that Kate and Andy “both had lawyers and were divorcing. But they hadn’t filed yet.”
Friends and family said Kate and Andy kept their personal demons in the closet and out of public view.
Her father, Earl “Frank” Brosnahan, said she seemed fine when they spoke Monday, the day before her death.
“She was happy and we made plans to meet in California,” her dad told The Wall Street Journal.
“They seemed to be the perfect, happy family,” Cornelia Guest, a…
