Willie Nelson Recalls Urging Wife Annie D’Angelo to ‘Let Me Die’ After Getting Covid in 2022

Both Willie Nelson and wife Annie D’Angelo thought he was at death’s door when he contracted Covid in 2022.

The pair recall just how dire the situation got in the 93-year-old country legend’s new book, The Last Leaf: Reflections on Late-Life Creativity — and My Longest Love Affair.

Then 89, Nelson recalled the symptoms hitting him in the middle of the night on May 2 while the two were sleeping on his tour bus. It was so bad, he couldn’t even walk five feet to the bathroom, the musician wrote in excerpts published by People.

Using both a nebulizer and oxygen on him, D’Angelo tested him for Covid. It came back positive. “I knew not to panic, but I also knew this was bad,” she recalled.

While they got a dose of Paxlovid from musician Mickey Raphael, D’Angelo said she still “wasn’t sure” Nelson “would make it” as her husband “grew sicker” en route to Austin.

She called a doctor and told them to have a “mobile monoclonal antibody guy” meet them at their home, telling her husband in the book that she “worked all this out for months” knowing “there was a good chance” he’d eventually catch the virus.

“I knew I needed to be ready,” D’Angelo explained, not wanting to bring him to a hospital for privacy and health reasons. Instead, they “outfitted” their bedroom “like a hospital,” and waited for the Paxlovid to start working its magic before giving him monoclonal antibodies.

“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,” D’Angelo continued, as Nelson remembered feeling “excruciating pain in every cell of my body” at the time.

“Am I right in remembering that I said, ‘Annie, you need to let me go’?” he asked, as she confirmed she told him in return, “Willie, if you die, I’ll kill you.”

While he was already prepared to go and be reincarnated “in a minute,” D’Angelo made it clear it was not his time. The next morning, he got an IV that could have either helped or made things worse — and, thankfully, it was the former.

What followed was “two weeks of utter hell,” per the “On the Road Again” singer, who apparently asked his wife to “let me die” more than once.

“Yup, twice. The whole thing was a nightmare,” she added.

The Last Leaf: Reflections on Late-Life Creativity — and My Longest Love Affair is out now.