Drama in the sunny world of the Beach Boys.
Brian Wilson, whose musical genius brought success in the 1960s to the pop-rock group considered the Californian alternative to the Beatles, suffers from dementia and the family has invoked the institution of legal custody following the death in January of his wife Melinda who had taken care of him for years.
"After Melinda's death and, after careful consideration with her children, housekeeper Gloria Ramos and doctors, lawyers LeAnn Hard and Jean Sievers will take care of Brian's affairs," we read on the singer's website.
In the legal documents accompanying the request, it is explained that Wilson, author of global hits such as Good Vibrations in 1966, "is incapable of giving informed consent to taking the drugs necessary to keep neurocognitive disorders at bay, including dementia who suffers."
Melinda died on January 30 at the age of 76, Brian is 81: "The decision serves to ensure that there are no extreme changes in the family and that the children who live with him remain in the house where they grew up", we read in the declaration.
Wilson is considered one of the musical geniuses of the '60s who, with songs like I Get Around and Barbara Ann, conveyed an idealized notion of California through harmonies at the top of all hit parades.
Today he is a man "incapable of providing for his personal needs both in terms of food and clothing", unable to appear personally in court because, as a doctor wrote, "he often comes out with irrelevant tirades or inconsistent, has a very low attention span and is incapable of maintaining the decorum appropriate to the situation."
Dementia is the last problem from which the Beach Boys frontman suffered: after a mental breakdown on a flight from Houston with the band in 1964, Brian abandoned touring to concentrate on studio recordings: a period of extreme creativity ' from which songs like Good Vibrations came out.
The Beach Boys sold their music catalog to Iconic Artist Group in 2021, while Wilson sold the rights to the lyrics to Universal Music a few months later.
Despite his success, Wilson's problems worsened: first depression, then a form of schizophrenia that manifested itself with auditory hallucinations, experimentation with LSD and other drugs, eating disorders and alcohol abuse.
For a long time, in the seventies, Brain couldn't get out of bed and the leadership of the band effectively passed to his younger brother Carl.
Melinda was his lifeline: their meeting, at a car dealership where she sold Cadillacs, immortalized in the 2014 film Love & Mercy.
They married in 1995 and adopted five children.
Brian had credited her with stabilizing his life and her career.
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