Adele Springsteen, mother of Bruce Springsteen, dies at the age of 98

Adele Springsteen, who nurtured the budding musical talent of her son, pioneering rock star Bruce Springsteen, died Wednesday. It was 98.

Mr. Springsteen announced his mother's death at Posted on Instagram Thursday. No reason was given, but Ms. Springsteen had suffered for more than a decade from Alzheimer's disease.

Her son has been open about his relationship with his mother and the impact it has had on him.

Ms. Springsteen rented him his first guitar when he was seven years old, He said in 2021 during his Broadway show“Springsteen on Broadway” ran for more than two months that year as the city began to emerge from pandemic-related lockdowns. The show had wide-ranging musings, including thoughts about his mother.

It was also Ms. Springsteen, he told the large Broadway audience at the St. James Theater, who danced to swing music in the 1940s and dazzled him with the joy of pop music's inspired melodies, according to NBC's “Today” show.

He also spoke of his mother's ability to continue her lively spirit even with age and painful illness.

“It's been 10 years since Alzheimer's,” he said. “She's 95 years old. But the need to dance, that need to dance is something that has never left her. She can't talk. She can't stand. But when she sees me, there's a smile.”

Ms. Springsteen was born Adele Zerilli on May 4, 1925 Brooklyn. She married Douglas Springsteen, with whom she had a son, in 1949, and two daughters, Virginia and Pamela.

She worked as a legal secretary and raised a young, working-class family in Freehold, New Jersey, while her husband often struggled to find steady work and struggled with mental illness. he He died in 1998.

“She wanted us to be a family, and we did,” Mr. Springsteen wrote in his memoir, Born To Run. “She wanted us not to break up and we didn’t.”

Ms. Springsteen's vivacious, ever-present spirit seemed to be the through-line in her life, enhancing the lives of the people around her.

“My mother is the great energy — she’s the energy of the show,” Mr. Springsteen told the Miami Herald in 1987. “Consistency and consistency day in and day out — that’s her.” He added that she “was the one who created the feeling of stability in the family, so that we never felt threatened during every hard times”.

In an Instagram post on Thursday announcing his mother's death, Mr. Springsteen shared a video of his mother, in old age, dancing to Glenn Miller's “In the Mood,” captioning an excerpt from his own video. 1998 song about her “Desire”.

“I'm older but you'll know me in one glance,” the message read. “We'll find us a little rock 'n' roll bar and we'll go out and dance.”

Amy Ortiz Contributed to reports.