Tony Christie vows to carry on singing for as long as he can, admitting he feels like “a different person” following his dementia diagnosis.
The singer appeared alongside his granddaughter, Deià, on Wednesday’s Lorraine and gave an update on how he was doing.
When speaking about his dementia diagnosis and how music is helping him, Tony explained: “I mean, when I first had this problem, I went to the doctor, the lady doctor, she says, ‘You’re very fortunate because you’ve got it, but you’re very fortunate you’re in the music business because music is one of the things we recommend people that have got dementia is to have music in the background because it takes their brain away from worrying about dementia’.”
He added: “And the good thing is that I enjoy working. I’m a workaholic, and I get very bored if I’m not working.”
When speaking about Tony continuing to perform on stage following his diagnosis, Deià said: “He’s amazing on stage, it is like you’re a different person.”
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Tony Christie appeared on Lorraine (Image: ITV)
Nodding, Tony agreed: “I really am. I will say I am a different person.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Tony opened up about the moment he met his wife and Deià’s grandmother.
Lorraine pointed out that Tony’s hit Stranger in Paradise was an important song in his family before asking: “Is that not when you decided that you knew the girl you were going to marry when you performed that song?”
“Yeah,” he nodded before sharing: “I had a group with me, Tony Christie and the Trackers, and I was doing this night club in Rotherham, which I did a week at.
Tony and his granddaugher (Image: ITV)
“And I was singing that song as my opening song and she came walking in with these lads who were actually a band.
“She was a secretary at a nightclub in Sheffield, and they said, ‘We’re going over to Rotherham where Tony Christie is working for the week; we want to go and see him,’ and she says,’ Can I go with you?’
“They brought her in and sat down, and I just turned to my bass player, Mike, and I just said, ‘Mike, I have just seen the girl I am going to marry,’ and he fell about.”
“And you did and the rest was history,” the ITV host added.
Lorraine airs weekdays at 9am on ITV.