WATCH: Now Cassidy's victim of family dementia hell

Shock appearance: David Cassidy struggled through a concert in Agoura Hills, outside LA, on Saturday night, slurring his words, forgetting lyrics and falling over. Photo: Daily Mail

Shock appearance: David Cassidy struggled through a concert in Agoura Hills, outside LA, on Saturday night, slurring his words, forgetting lyrics and falling over. Photo: Daily Mail

Published Feb 21, 2017

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David Cassidy, best known as the well-coiffed heartthrob who starred in the 1970s series The Partridge Family, watched his family members succumb one by one to dementia.

First, his grandfather slowly lost his mind to the disease.

Then his mother, the Broadway and television actress Evelyn Ward who Cassidy once said “basically raised me for years on her own”, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s around 2002. Eight years later, Cassidy said she “can’t walk, can’t talk and lives in a nappy.”

In 2012, Ward died aged 89. Just before Ward’s death, Cassidy became an advocate for those with Alzheimer’s, speaking at nationwide engagements for Alzheimer’s and dementia organisations. Now, one of Cassidy’s biggest fears has come to fruition. In an interview on Monday, he announced that at 66, he is suffering from dementia.

“I was in denial, but a part of me always knew this was coming,” Cassidy said.

At the end of last year, Cassidy, who has spent the past several years touring the world and playing solo songs alongside tunes from The Partridge Family, has decided to quit playing live shows to focus on his health.

“I want to focus on what I am, who I am and how I’ve been without any distractions,” he said.

“I want to love. I want to enjoy life.”

As he wrote on his website: “I will always be eternally grateful for the love and support you’ve shown me. I still love very much to play and perform live. But it’s much more difficult for me now.

“I’m not going to vanish or disappear forever. I’ll be able to communicate much more through my website and my Facebook page. As you can imagine this has been truthfully ‘the most difficult decision I have ever made in my entire life’. “I’m eternally grateful to each and every single one of you.

The revelation comes after a disastrous weekend show in California during which Cassidy couldn’t remember the lyrics to many of his older songs. Sadly for the former teen idol, this is the latest in a string of life’s unfortunate curveballs.

The child star has spent much of his middle age battling alcoholism, much like his father, actor Jack Cassidy.

From 2010 to 2014, he was arrested three times for driving while drunk. The last two arrests came within six months of each other, finally leading him to rehab in South Florida.

A month after the last arrest, his third wife Sue Shifrin-Cassidy filed for divorce. In an interview with Piers Morgan, Cassidy attributed the divorce in some part to his drinking.

“If I take another drink, I’m going to die, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. I’m dead... It’s very humbling and it’s also humiliating,” he told Morgan, before adding that admitting to his disease gave him some hope.

The Washington Post

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