Country music icon Willie Nelson had a near-death experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, and he is opening up about it in his new memoir, “The Last Leaf.”
Willie Nelson Had a Near-Death Experience During the Pandemic
Nelson says he is lucky to be alive and credits his wife, Annie D’Angelo, for how she handled it. The “On the Road Again” singer revealed that the family, including their sons Lukas and Micah, quarantined at their Texas ranch. “Annie wouldn’t let any of us leave the ranch,” he wrote, the Daily Mail reports. “Once a week she went to the grocery store, wearing a half-face respirator and a protective hat. She looked like a hazmat jumper. She bleached the house from top to bottom and left the mail outside for three days before we could touch it.”
When Nelson felt he was recovering, he wanted to play the grand opening of the Moody Center arena in Austin, Texas. “Winning that argument, damn near cost me my life,” he writes. Two days after the performance, he became incredibly unwell, the Daily Mail reports. He was 89 at the time. D’Angelo reflected on this time: “I had the nebulizer on you, and a Q-tip up your nose to test for Covid-19. I got the oxygen going to keep you breathing, but it wasn’t working. You still couldn’t breathe.”
Despite receiving a Paxlovid prescription, the medication to help treat COVID, Nelson was incredibly sick, and D’Angelo believed that he may die. They decided not to go to a hospital. “You’d have no chance of privacy, and hospitals are hotbeds of deadly viruses,” she said. So they turned their home into a medical facility.
Nelson “got sicker with every passing hour.” She continued, “Every labored breath caused you incredible pain. I wanted to do more, but I’d done all I could. I just had to sit there and watch you suffer. It was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do.” Nelson recalled he was in such “excruciating pain” that he begged his wife to let him go. Twice. Of the time, he wrote, it was “two weeks of utter hell. I’ve never seen such pain.”
Willie Nelson Praises His Wife Annie D’Angelo
In an interview with The Guardian, published on November 8, Nelson was asked if he feels like he is “the last leaf on the tree,” to which he replied, “Well, you know, I guess I probably am the last leaf on the tree. I’m lucky to be here. I’ve lost a lot of my good friends along the way. You know, Johnny, Waylon and Kris. I feel fortunate that I’m still here.”
He discussed death in a pragmatic way, writing, “Well, you know, everybody’s gonna die, so it ain’t no big deal how long we got. We live, and we die, and I believe we come back again.” Nelson also praised his loving wife, whom he married in 1991. “Well, you know, Annie is my best friend. She does everything that I need to have done,” he said. “She makes sure I do it, or she does it for me. Yeah, for 40 years we’ve been together.”
Country Music Legend Willie Nelson, 93, Details Near-Death Experience