Oswalt sets engagement, blasts ‘grub worm’ critics
Comedian Patton Oswalt, who has publicly wrestled with grief over the sudden death of his wife last year, announced over the weekend that he was engaged to be married to actress Meredith Salenger. That news was met with messages of support from many others who have recently lost a spouse, including Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg, as well as some predictable online grousing from what Oswalt called “bitter grub worms.” Salenger, who may be best known for her role in the 1980s Disney movie “The Journey of Natty Gann,” announced their engagement on Twitter last week, and representatives for the pair later confirmed the news to The Hollywood Reporter. Oswalt, 48, said Saturday that he had planned to ignore online commenters who accused him of moving on too soon from the death of his first wife, Michelle McNamara, a 46-year-old true-crime writer who died in her sleep in April 2016. Oswalt said in February that she had died from a combination of an undiagnosed heart condition and a mix of prescription medications, including Adderall, Xanax and fentanyl. But Oswalt changed course over the weekend to share an angry blog post — title: “A Widow’s Rage Defense of Patton Oswalt’s Engagement” — written in his defense by Erica Roman, a writer who said she lost her husband three days before the death of McNamara. Salenger, 47, soon did the same, sharing Roman’s piece and then posting a statement of her own on Twitter in response to critics.