Will Reeve is opening up about his painful, heartbreaking childhood, and how he got through it all.
The Good Morning America anchor, whose father was the beloved Christopher Reeve, was orphaned when he was only 13 years old; his father passed away aged 52 in 2004, almost ten years after the horseback riding accident that left him paralyzed, and less than two years later, his wife, Dana Reeve, passed away after a brief battle with lung cancer, despite never having been a smoker.
The couple had tied the knot in 1992; the Superman actor is also survived by his eldest children, shared with ex-girlfriend Gae Exton, Matthew, 44, and Alexandra, 40.
Today, Will is further preserving his father's legacy with the release of a new documentary, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which documents both his path to stardom and how his life changed after the accident.
In addition to sharing clips of the forthcoming documentary on Good Morning America — he has worked with ABC since 2018 — Will opened up to People about what it was like becoming an orphan at 13.
"That's when I realized I was completely alone," he said in the documentary, though he subsequently told the outlet: "I moved in with our beloved neighbors who were our best friends," noting: "That's been such an unlikely, amazing experience for almost 20 years."
© GettyHis older half-siblings, who were around 21 and 25 years old at the time of their father's death, also served as parental figures. "Matthew and Al, always in my life, not just in the hard times, have been sources of such strength and support and joy and love for me," he said.
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"I mean, everybody came through," he further shared, recalling: "I think it was an all-hands-on-deck situation. My maternal grandparents, Charles and Helen Morini, were unbelievably indispensable. And we were fortunate enough to live in a tight-knit community."
© Getty"We had big groups of friends and teachers and coaches and people from the past and people from the present just chipping in however they could always."
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© GettyWill maintained: "It's like they say, it takes a village. And the village responded to our situation in such a substantial and impactful way."
© GettyStill, reflecting on the huge loss, he also shared: "My mom was maybe the most special person ever to grace this earth," and that her "predilection for caregiving and showing compassion to all she encountered was innate to her. She didn't have to wake up every day and decide to take care of our family. It's who she was."
He lastly considered: "Grief is permanent. The people we love who we lose are gone forever from this earth, but we carry their memories, their spirit, and their values with us forever. And by orienting ourselves around the love that we feel for those we have lost, we honor them. And that helps us heal."
