Lady Gaga pays heartfelt tribute to Tony Bennett

LONDON:  Lady Gaga has paid tribute to her associate and collaborator Tony Bennett, following his death on July 21 at age 96.

According to the international media, Gaga took to her Instagram and posted, “I will miss my friend forever. I will miss singing with him, recording with him, talking with him, being on stage together. With Tony, I got to live my life in a time warp. Tony & I had this magical power. We transported ourselves to another era, modernised the music together, & gave it all new life as a singing duo. But it wasn’t an act. Our relationship was very real.”

Meanwhile, Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016 and made his last public appearance with Gaga at Radio City Music Hall in August 2021 for their widely appreciated concert, One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. 

Read More: Legendary singer Tony Bennett dies at age 96

The celebrated pair released two albums together including 2021’s Love for Sale, a Cole Porter tribute that included solo selections such as Do I Love You, I Get a Kick Out of You, I’ve Got You Under My Skin and Let’s Do It.  It marked as The Good Life’s singer 61st and final studio recording following their previous collaboration in 2014’s widely popular Cheek to Cheek.

According to the international media, during her interview, Gaga said, “Sure he taught me about music, about showbiz life, but he also showed me how to keep my spirits high and my head screwed on straight. ‘Straight ahead,’ he’d say. He was an optimist, he believed in quality work AND quality life,” .

Gaga continued, “I’ve been grieving the loss of Tony for a long time. We had a very long and powerful goodbye. Though there were five decades between us, he was my friend. My real true friend. Our age difference didn’t matter– in fact, it gave us each something neither of us had with most people. We were from two different stages in life entirely — inspired,”.

“Losing Tony to Alzheimer’s has been painful but it was also really beautiful. An era of memory loss is such a sacred time in a person’s life. There’s such a feeling of vulnerability and a desire to preserve dignity. All I wanted was for Tony to remember how much I loved him and how grateful I was to have him in my life. But, as that faded slowly I knew deep down he was sharing with me the most vulnerable moment in his life that he could — being willing to sing with me when his nature was changing so deeply. I’ll never forget this experience. I’ll never forget Tony Bennett,” she said. “If I could say anything to the world about this I would say don’t discount your elders, don’t leave them behind when things change. Don’t flinch when you feel sad, just keep going straight ahead, sadness is part of it. Take care of your elders and I promise you will learn something special. Maybe even magical. And pay attention to silence—some of my musical partner and I’s most meaningful exchanges were with no melody at all.”, Gaga said.

As part of their promotional campaign for the Love for Sale album, a behind-the-scenes video captured the endearing relationship and friendship between the two renowned artists. In one scene, Gaga breaks down to tears as Bennett sits down to sketch her. “I was thinking of doing a sketch of you for the cover, a nice, clean picture of you,” he tells her. In what becomes the artwork for the album, Gaga tells Bennett, “It’s beautiful, it’s so beautiful. It makes me cry.”