Tony Bennett’s Family Shares Alzheimer’s Diagnosis

Legendary recording artist Tony Bennett has re-teamed with Lady Gaga for a second album of standards as a follow-up to the massive 2014 hit album, Cheek to Cheek. The album, recorded between 2018 and early 2020, is set for a spring release. In announcing the upcoming release, however, Bennett’s family has also shared a secret: that Bennett, now 94, was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease four years ago. From AARP:

Tony Bennett has Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of age-related dementia. Alzheimer’s is characterized by a progressive memory loss that robs its sufferers of many of the gifts that we all take for granted — speech, understanding, treasured memories, recognition of loved ones — and leaves them utterly dependent on caregivers.

Bennett, first diagnosed in 2016, has so far been spared the disorientation that can prompt patients to wander from home, as well as the episodes of terror, rage or depression that can accompany Alzheimer’s frightening detachment from reality; and, indeed, he might never develop these symptoms. But there was little doubt that the disease had progressed.

Early in the article, writer John Colapinto shares this brief moment from the recording sessions with Bennett and Lady Gaga:

The pain and sadness in Gaga’s face is clear at such moments — but never more so than in an extraordinarily moving sequence in which Tony (a man she calls “an incredible mentor, and friend, and father figure”) sings a solo passage of a love song. Gaga looks on, from behind her mic, her smile breaking into a quiver, her eyes brimming, before she puts her hands over her face and sobs.

AARP

adds this ‘disclaimer’ in the article:

Eager for as many ears as possible to hear and enjoy what may very well be the last Tony Bennett record, they have jointly decided to break the silence around his condition, a decision they have, necessarily, had to make without Tony’s input, since he is, Susan said, incapable of understanding the disease, let alone making momentous decisions about whether to publicly disclose it.

Gayatri Devi, M.D., who diagnosed Bennett, said the singer has some “cognitive issues, but multiple other areas of his brain are still resilient and functioning well.” Read the full article at AARP.

Life is a gift – even with Alzheimer’s. Thank you to Susan and my family for their support, and @AARP The Magazine for telling my story.

Read more here:https://t.co/R05A4jc5BF⁰

📸 Kelsey Bennett pic.twitter.com/ApxBCpGv0y

— Tony Bennett (@itstonybennett) February 1, 2021