Lady Gaga pens emotional tribute to Tony Bennett

The singer-actor said losing her friend to Alzheimer's was painful but she was grateful to have had him in her life.

Los Angeles: Lady Gaga on Monday took to Instagram to pen a heartfelt tribute to her late friend Tony Bennett, who died earlier this month at the age of 96. “I will miss my friend forever,” Gaga, who worked with the musician on two albums, wrote captioning her picture with Bennett.

The singer-actor said losing her friend to Alzheimer’s was painful but she was grateful to have had him in her life. “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 wrote.

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Gaga and Bennett collaborated on 2014’s “Cheek to Cheek”, which broke Bennett’s own record as the oldest living performer with a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart. In 2021, they partnered again on two albums called “Love for Sale” and “Let’s do It”.

The singer said she will miss being on stage together with Bennett. “With Tony, I got to live my life in a time warp. Tony & I had this magical power. We transported ourselves to another era, modernized the music together, & gave it all new life as a singing duo. But it wasn’t an act. Our relationship was very real.

“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,” she wrote in a long post.

Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016 and made his last public appearance alongside Gaga in 2021. The musician passed away on July 21.