Several weeks after the death of Tony Bennett, his wife Susan Benedetto shared the final words of the legendary singer, who died on July 21 at the age of 96. Benedetto said that Bennett’s last words to her before he died were that he loved her.
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“That he loved me,” recalled Benedetto as Bennett’s final words to her. “He would wake up every day and still say that. He woke up happy every day. Even if he had had a bad day or night, he didn’t remember it. That was the only blessing. He woke up happy.”
She continued, “And he’s just like, ‘Susan, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.’ And he would say that to me all the time.”
Bennett’s son Danny also shared his father’s final words. “His last words to me [were], ‘Thank you,’” said Danny Bennett. “Can’t say it better than that.”
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Though Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016, and his memory progressively deteriorated over the years, Benedetto said that he still remembered his songs. He was even singing his very first No. 1 hit, “Because of You,” on the piano shortly before his death.
“We were getting him up to exercise, and so it was easy to just latch onto the piano,” remembered Benedetto. “And I said, ‘Ton, why don’t you get up and you can sing?’ You know, any excuse to just get him up? I said, ‘Why don’t you sing?’ He’s like, ‘What do you want to hear?’ I said, ‘How about singing ‘Because of You?’ So he sang ‘Because of You.’”
Benedetto added, “Literally, that was the last song he sang.”
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Shortly after Bennett’s death, his final song was shared on his official social media pages. “Tony left us today but he was still singing the other day at his piano and his last song was, ‘Because of You,’ his first No. 1 hit,” read the caption, along with a black and white photo of Bennett posed with an old Columbia Records microphone. “Tony, because of you we have your songs in our heart forever.”
Written by Arthur Hammerstein and Dudley Wilkinson in 1940, “Because of You” was recorded and released by Bennett in 1951 and later became the title track of his 1952 album. The song was his first No. 1 hit and remained at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 10 weeks.
His wife said that his first big hit being the last song he sang represents a “kind of balance.”
“Well, of course, it bookends his career, if you think just musically speaking,” she said. “That was his first hit, and then that was literally just the last song that he sang. So the music never left him.”
Photo: Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images
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