The 48-year-old broadcaster has investigated some of the most niche and bizarre aspects of life in his years as a documentary filmmaker, but his career has also taken him to some of the darker corners of human existence. In tonight’s episode of Louis Theroux’s Altered States on BBC Two, he examines the matter of life and death, specifically, terminally ill people who choose to end their lives through a prescribed cocktail of drugs. Speaking out about how he reacts when the cameras aren’t rolling, the stoic Brit told this week’s Radio Times: “I’ve seen quite a few upsetting situations and I think sometimes I may lack a certain level of emotional self-knowledge.
“Occasionally I get surprised when emotions come at me unexpectedly,” he continued.
“But, for the most part, I’m unscathed. It doesn’t traumatise me.
“I see something extraordinary, I’m part of a very powerful, upsetting scene in which someone is dying, or expressing a deep sense of mental anguish, and then I go home, put my kids to bed and kiss my wife,” Louis said.
In tonight’s episode of Altered States, Louis meets Gus Thomasson, 74, who is suffering from stage 4 pancreatic cancer and has decided to end his life.
As a terminally ill adult, Gus has the right to die by prescribed medication under California law.
Explaining his decision, Gus says: “I knew that was the way I was going to go, I would not die suffering.
“It’s gonna kill me, why should I wait?”
LOUIS THEROUX NET WORTH: ALTERED STATES STAR HAS THIS MUCH IN THE BANK
Altered States shows his final moments after he takes the lethal cocktail of drugs, slipping into a coma before dying seven-and-a-half hours later, surrounded by his family.
California is one of seven US states where the terminally ill have the right to end their own lives.
Louis also gets to know a 65-year-old recently widowed woman who is wheelchair-bound and also choosing to end her life.
She poses the question to the filmmaker: “Would you want to live this life?”
In addition, Louis meets with non-profit pro-assisted suicide organisation Final Exit Network based in Florida.
Final Exit Network instruct those who “don’t fit the criteria” of laws which allow assisted dying.
On their website, they state their mission to “educate qualified individuals in practical, peaceful ways to end their lives, offer a compassionate bedside presence and defend their right to choose.”
Father-of-three Louis has built a reputation for his documentaries with the BBC over the course of his 20-year career.
His most famous work included the Weird Weekends series, When Louis Met…, My Scientology Movie and, more recently, the Dark States series, which looked at heroin addiction, sex trafficking and murder.
Louis Theroux’s Altered States continues tonight at 9pm on BBC Two.
Read the full interview with Louis Theroux in this week’s Radio Times – out now.
If you or anyone you know has been affected by the issues raised in this article, visit https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/euthanasia-and-assisted-suicide/ for more information.