 Divine's mother, Frances Milstead, remarked that while Divine "was blessed with many talents and abilities, he could be very moody and demanding." She noted that while he was "incredibly kind and generous", he always wanted to get things done the way that he wanted, and would "tune you out if you displeased him." She noted that in most interviews, he came across as "a very shy and private person". Divine's Dutch friends gave him two bulldogs in the early 1980s, on which he doted, naming them Beatrix and Claus after Queen Beatrix and her husband Prince Claus of the Netherlands. On numerous occasions he would have his photograph taken with them and sometimes use these images for record covers and posters. Divine suffered from problems with obesity from childhood, caused by his love of food, and in later life his hunger was increased by his daily use of marijuana, an addiction that he publicly admitted to. According to Bernard Jay, in Divine's final years, when his disco career was coming to an end and he was struggling to find acting jobs, he felt suicidal and threatened to kill himself on several occasions.
