David Cassidy Lied About Dementia, Drinking...

[Babalu]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/pop-star-...181354561.html

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former teen idol David Cassidy did not have dementia, as he claimed before he died, and lied about giving up drinking, the singer told the makers of a documentary about him in the months before his death.

Cassidy, 67, who shot to fame in the 1970s TV show "The Partridge Family," died of organ failure at age 67 in Florida in November 2017, nine months after declaring he was fighting dementia in a bid to stave off reports about odd behaviour.

But in an excerpt released on Wednesday from documentary "David Cassidy: The Last Session," Cassidy told producers that his problems were due to alcoholism.

"I have a liver disease," Cassidy told one of the producers in a recorded telephone call after an emergency hospital admission in September.

"There is no sign of me having dementia at this stage of my life. It was complete alcohol poisoning. The fact is, I lied about my drinking," he added.

I guess this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. In order to cover up his drinking Cassidy made up that he had dementia.

"We, the Cassidy family, were not affiliated with the A&E documentary. All we are interested in is maintaining the legacy of the icon he was," Beau Cassidy said in a statement on Wednesday.

Co-producer Saralena Weinfield told People magazine that the documentary makers were unsure at first what to do with the footage and the telephone recording.

"We didn't want to exploit him. But ultimately he was honest about what killed him and we decided that his legacy would be best served if we shared that," Weinfield told People in an interview released on Wednesday.

David is a prime example of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for because it may come true."

[Willbo]

I saw David in the Dr. Phil interview. I was never convinced that he had dementia. He was not very convincing. He sounded/looked like an alcoholic. He left us way to young.

[Wawwie]

Originally Posted by Babalu

https://www.yahoo.com/news/pop-star-...181354561.html




I guess this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. In order to cover up his drinking Cassidy made up that he had dementia.



David is a prime example of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for because it may come true."

Whatever. The man is dead. Why are you picking on him and why does this even matter?

RIP, David Cassidy

[um]

I'm not sure that the original link in this discussion is exactly the same as this one. It does not look like it.

There was no doubt in my mind that David did NOT have dementia as a result of inheriting it. If so, it was probably from destroyed brain cells due to alcoholism. Of course the alcoholism could very well have been inherited from his father, if not genetically then just because the dysfunctions get passed on.
It seems that it turns it into a different discussion at least in a way. David might have decided to end his life continuing to drink, knowing that it was destroying him. He was a very broken man morally, psychologically.


https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...140011482.html

[um]

Originally Posted by Babalu

David is a prime example of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for because it may come true."

Did you hear about the famous designer who took her own life , Kate Spade? I don't know too much about her but I understand she was well known in the fashion industry.

I read so much on the internet saying things like "Kate Spade's suicide is proof that success and money does not do away with depression." or "Fame is not all it is cracked up to be," etc etc etc, all cliches about having money and being wealthy or well off.

What sounds odd to me is that it is essentially saying to people, don't have dreams of achieving or being successful or rising from a lesser place and accomplishing things in life rather than be dull and mediocre and obscure.

Sure that's right in a certain way. Some people have delusions about extreme wealth. For them they are already of a self-defeating mindset that if they were to strike it rich by winning the lottery, they would ruin their own lives because they just gamble and drink and waste their money and still not know why they are not happy.


It is taking it the wrong way to say "You think you can be happier with money but look at what happens to people who do have money."
I say, look at what happens to people who don't have money. They die of depression and suicide and unhappiness anyway and they don't have money to go to a doctor or get treatment. Sure you can point to the fact that people with a lot of money are "lonely" because other people only like them for their money. Yet there is a saying "I rather cry in my limousine than laugh while begging for pennies on the street" (something like that).

There are people who will be depressed and commit suicide when they are poor and their lives will not have impacted anyone. They will just be another person who went to Potter's Field, (a metaphor for a mass grave for poor people).
The success that Kate Spade had had nothing to do with her depression.
She had the talent to be a designer and her drive and hard work paid off and she made people happy with her creativity and that is a very positive thing and she inspired other people to also be designers and she was a person who did not just live an unaccomplished life like a lot of people who are too afraid to take a plunge and do some hard work; That is the way to look at it I believe.
Chances are that if she were not a famous designer, she would have committed suicide anyway and perhaps sooner because it would have been depressing to her not to have been able to make her designs successful.

[PracTz]

Originally Posted by Wawwie

Whatever. The man is dead. Why are you picking on him and why does this even matter?

RIP, David Cassidy

It 'matters' because not only did he throw his OWN MOTHER under the bus linking her heartbreaking living death to his own claimed diagnosis just to avoid accountability for his booze indulgences (not just the public, his fans but also his own family) but ALSO because now it will be more difficult for AUTHENTIC dementia sufferers' conditions to be taken seriously and believed. Now, there will be those who will say 'so-and-so isn't actually suffering from Alzheimer's, Lewy-Body Dementia,etc. they're REALLY just drunks like David Cassidy said he was!'

Of course, since he admitted he lied SO much, it's possible that even THIS claim he made on camera's a lie and he actually DID have dementia but didn't want to admit it to himself. Who knows.

[um]

Originally Posted by PracTz

It 'matters' because not only did he throw his OWN MOTHER under the bus linking her heartbreaking living death to his own claimed diagnosis just to avoid accountability for his booze indulgences (not just the public, his fans but also his own family) but ALSO because now it will be more difficult for AUTHENTIC dementia sufferers' conditions to be taken seriously and believed. Now, there will be those who will say 'so-and-so isn't actually suffering from Alzheimer's, Lewy-Body Dementia,etc. they're REALLY just drunks like David Cassidy said he was!'

Of course, since he admitted he lied SO much, it's possible that even THIS claim he made on camera's a lie and he actually DID have dementia but didn't want to admit it to himself. Who knows.

David does seem to have had an extremely desperate mind during his last years. His world fell apart and he lost control. He resorted to lying so that things don't get worse for him. But also it seems that maybe in his very last interview before his death (and perhaps he knew it was coming soon) he admitted that he was lying about dementia and he also admitted that he still could not control his alcoholism because at that point, it did not matter.
He probably felt guilty about lying but he probably felt that he cannot just get into trouble with the law by confessing he is still drinking and not attempting to sober up. Maybe he made sure that his last interview would tell the truth.

I am not sure if it is true that it is shocking to his surviving children and family members. They might have known all along.

[um]

Originally Posted by PracTz

now it will be more difficult for AUTHENTIC dementia sufferers' conditions to be taken seriously and believed. Now, there will be those who will say 'so-and-so isn't actually suffering from Alzheimer's, Lewy-Body Dementia,etc. they're REALLY just drunks like David Cassidy said he was!'

Well, not that you are wrong, but even if this is a high-profile case of a celebrity lying about dementia (and of course there is currently no other case in which a celebrity has been found to be lying about dementia to hide alcoholism) it seems that it still will NOT become the sole reason why people with actual dementia won't be believed, nor will there be an extremely great uptick all over the world in which people with dementia are going to be dismissed as liars, nor will every case of dementia NOW be considered to be alcoholism or drug use.
It seems that the case of David Cassidy alone is not enough to cause that. It probably is that incidents of dementia suffers being disbelieved is something that is going to happen anyway depending on what kind of people they deal with, such as uncaring doctors and unsympathetic family members and people who don't understand. Some people could and would say that since David Cassidy lied it means other dementia suffers are lying but ultimately most people's situation is not like that of David Cassidy who obviously had been driving drunk on certain occasions and who told Dr Phil (as if Dr Phil is some authority rather than an opportunist TV doctor) a sentimental story about his mother and grandfather having dementia and it is more than obvious that David Cassidy was probably dealing with alcoholism on that stage early last year and not really inherited dementia.

It is very sad and tragic about David.

I don't know if anyone else posted the link below already, but this a written piece that was published, or posted online immediately after David's death.
It tells of the article-writer's encounter with David not very long before he died. It tells of how David was already acting strangely and it was obvious that something was wrong with him. He may have been experience memory loss but it was probably because of alcoholism.

I recall seeing some photos of David on his official website only a few months before he died. He was working on an album. He just did not look well. It was not the aging process alone if at all. He had some kind of medical problem taking its toll and which had been underway for quite a while.
Only now is there more evidence of what was really happening.

http://www.dailyherald.com/insights/...ragedy-is-over

[PracTz]

I read the People magazine article and I think it's probable that Mr. Cassidy himself DID suffer dementia at the end of his life(likely accelerated via boozing)- despite him denying it oncamera and claiming he'd lied about it.

Still, it's tough enough for those who suffer from dementia and their caregivers to be taken seriously much less get the help needed and, as unfair as this would be, there WILL be those who will use Mr. Cassidy's posthumous claims as ammo against authentic sufferers.

[OH Nuts!]

Originally Posted by Babalu

https://www.yahoo.com/news/pop-star-...181354561.html




I guess this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. In order to cover up his drinking Cassidy made up that he had dementia.



David is a prime example of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for because it may come true."

Even though David wasn’t fully forthcoming, dementia-like symptoms can sometimes result from acute alcoholism. (e.g. “wet-brains”). Often chronic full-blown alcoholics die from some kind of liver damage. Or from doing something self-destructive in a blackout. (Like Jack Cassidy who passed out drunk/high with a cigarette in his mouth. The cigarette ending up causing the place to go up in flames and he perished in the fire.)

[TMC]

David Cassidy's third wife slams A&E for its documentary on the singer's final months
Sue Shifrin Cassidy protested the documentary David Cassidy: The Last Sessions, which airs tonight, on Twitter, calling it exploitative. David Cassidy's fellow Partridge Family star Danny Bonaduce responded that the singer was the one who wanted cameras to film him.