ROBBIE Williams has revealed his mum’s heartbreaking health diagnosis.
The singer, 50, admitted he’s in a “different part of his life” now with mum Janet’s condition coming four years after dad Pete was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
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Robbie’s upcoming biopic Better Man recalls his close relationship with his late grandmother who had dementia.
Speaking to HELLO! magazine, he said: “My mum’s currently got dementia – like my nan in the film – and my dad’s got Parkinsons and can’t get out of bed.
“So I’m in a different part of my life right now.”
Robbie is married to actress and Loose Women panellist Ayda Field and he previously revealed they were facing “big family problems” due to the health of their parents.
He told the Mirror in 2020: “We’ve got a lot of family issues right now. My dad has got Parkinson’s, my mother-in-law who I love dearly has got a very big illness.”
During an appearance on Loose Women last month Ayda revealed mum Gwen’s cervical cancer has returned.
She told her co-stars: “My mother – we don’t talk about stages in our house – and I say all of this after having discussed it with my mum that I was going to potentially discuss what she was going through.
“My mother said, ‘I so want you to tell this story, I just want to make sure it’s positive. I am going to do my best and I am going to make this positive’.
“[She] has unfortunately had a return of her cervical cancer. She is also a breast cancer survivor.”
Ayda continued: “So the cancer has come back and we got the news a couple of months ago and I’ve just been privately processing it.
“But when we were talking about this today and it’s breast cancer awareness month, I realised I really always wanna be authentic when I’m here and authentic with my group of friends.
“It felt like this was an appropriate time to talk about the battle behind closed doors in our house.”
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Is it ageing or dementia?
Dementia – the most common form of which is Alzheimer’s – comes on slowly over time.
As the disease progresses, symptoms can become more severe.
But at the beginning, the symptoms can be subtle or mistaken for normal memory issues related to ageing.
The US National Institute on Aging gives some examples of what is considered normal forgetfulness in old age, and dementia disease.
You can refer to these above.
For example, it is normal for an ageing person to forget which word to use from time-to-time, but difficulting having conversation would be more indicative of dementia.
Katie Puckering, Head of Alzheimer’s Research UK’s Information Services team, previously told The Sun: “We quite commonly as humans put our car keys somewhere out of the ordinary and it takes longer for us to find them.
“As you get older, it takes longer for you to recall, or you really have to think; What was I doing? Where was I? What distracted me? Was it that I had to let the dog out? And then you find the keys by the back door.
“That process of retrieving the information is just a bit slower in people as they age.
“In dementia, someone may not be able to recall that information and what they did when they came into the house.
“What may also happen is they might put it somewhere it really doesn’t belong. For example, rather than putting the milk back in the fridge, they put the kettle in the fridge.”
