Willie Nelson details his intense conversations with wife Annie during his “excruciating” bout with COVID-19 — and why he asked her to let him die — in his new book about his legendary life and career.
Willie, 93, contracted the virus in 2022, recounting in his new memoir, The Last Leaf: Reflections on Late-Life Creativity — and My Longest Love Affair, that Annie, 70, was his saving grace, literally and figuratively.
“Annie and I were sleeping in the bus when it hit me. The distance from the bed to the bathroom is less than 5 feet. But I couldn’t get there,” the country singer writes in an excerpt shared by People on Tuesday, November 10. “I couldn’t breathe. Annie remembers. It was May 4.”
According to the passage, Annie tested Willie for COVID-19 on the road, and although she “knew not to panic, I also knew this was bad.” (Annie shares sons Lukas, 37, and Micah, 36, with the musician, whom she wed in 1991. Willie has six other children from prior relationships.)
She recalls getting a prescription for Paxlovid from Willie’s longtime band member Mickey Raphael after it had “just come out,” noting her husband “could breathe, but barely.”
The pair’s drivers chose to stay with them and drive Willie and his wife back to Austin, Texas, as the Grammy winner “stayed isolated and grew sicker.”
“I wasn’t sure you would make it,” Annie confesses in the excerpt. “I alerted Dr. Greenwood that we were on our way and asked to have a mobile monoclonal antibody guy meet us at the cabin.”
Willie was surprised his partner even knew what to do, but she explains that she’d “worked all this out for months” because there was “a good chance you’d catch it” and she “needed to be ready.”
“Anyway, we got home and carried you off the bus into our bedroom, which was already outfitted like a hospital. I knew that the Paxlovid would take another day to kick in and we’d have to wait till morning for the monoclonal antibodies,” Annie recalls in her quote from the book. “Meanwhile, you got sicker with every passing hour. 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.”
Willie writes, “All I can remember is feeling excruciating pain in every cell of my body. Am I right in remembering that I said, ‘Annie, you need to let me go?’”
“That’s just what you said,” she shares, to which Willie notes, “But you wouldn’t let me.”
“What I actually said was, ‘Willie, if you die, I’ll kill you.’ And you said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a minute,’” per the book. “You were thinking about reincarnation, but I didn’t want to hear about reincarnation. I wanted you to understand that I was not about to let you go.”
Willie adds, “And you didn’t.”
According to Annie, the couple “got through the night and in the morning the doctor was back with an IV infusion. He look[ed] at you and said, ‘Mr. Nelson, I have to warn you: This medicine will either get you better or it will kill you.’ ‘Either way,’ you said, ‘just give it to me.’”
Willie remembers asking Annie, “How many days was I bad off?” to which she responds, “Two weeks of utter hell. I’ve never seen such pain.”
“Did I ask you to let me die?” Willie asks.
Annie replies, “Yup, twice. The whole thing was a nightmare.”
The Last Leaf: Reflections on Late-Life Creativity — and My Longest Love Affair is out now.
