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Bernie Madoff is backing up his wife Ruth’s suicide story.
Months after claiming that he never considered taking his life — “It’s just not the way I am,” he told New York magazine — the imprisoned Ponzi schemer called “Today” show host Matt Lauer to say Ruth’s tale of a 2008 double- overdose attempt was on the level.
Bernie called Lauer several times Sunday night to corroborate Ruth’s account of a Christmas Eve suicide pact with pills, Lauer told Ruth and her son, Andrew Madoff, while interviewing them yesterday.
“He agrees completely with the way you tell this story,” Lauer told Ruth.
“He said he took Ambien, aspirin and some blood-pressure medication. The two of you got into bed that night fully dressed because you suspected your bodies would be found.
“He said he woke up the next day to the sounds of you saying, ‘I’m alive, I’m alive,’ ” Lauer said.
Ruth smiled in response, saying, “He remembers a lot more than I do. I don’t remember that, but I remember feeling glad that I was.”
Ruth said she had wanted to die weeks after her husband was busted for a $60 billion scam that swindled thousands of victims, including all of her friends.
“We didn’t really plan it in advance,” she said. “I think it was my idea more than his. I was in agony over the losses of all my friends. Everyone I knew and loved was a victim of Bernie . . . and I couldn’t do anything to help.”
Lauer also told Andrew Madoff — whose brother, Mark, killed himself last year on the second anniversary of Bernie’s arrest — that their dad told him during a call that “one of the things that still haunts him is that he never had a chance to explain to you and your brother what really happened and how he got into that position.”