The veteran actor died at the age of 96 on July 21.
Lady Gaga is remembering Tony Bennett on what would have been his 97th birthday!
On Thursday, Gaga took to her Instagram to remember her friend and collaborator with a special post, filled with pictures captured in their home city of New York.
"Happy Birthday Tony. August 3rd is Tony Bennett Day. A day for smiling. But I’ll be celebrating you a lot more than once a year. I’ll celebrate you every time I’m on stage singing jazz music, every time I’m with your family, every time I walk down the streets of New York I’ll look around and remember all you did for this city and the whole world. 😘," Gaga wrote.
The "Cheek to Cheek" songstress posed by a classic NYC food truck wearing a black gown and hat. Bennett worked with Gaga on his 2011 Duets II album, and later reteamed with her for 2014’s Cheek to Cheek. The pair released their collaborative Love for Sale in 2021, which was Bennett's final album and won him his 20th and final GRAMMY Award.
Bennett died just two weeks shy of his birthday on July 21. He was 96. Though no official cause of death has been released, Bennett had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2016, sharing the news with the public in 2021.
Earlier this week, Gaga took to Instagram to remember her friend and talk about the art they created, amid his illness.
"I've been grieving the loss of Tony for a long time. We had a very long and powerful goodbye.
Though there were 5 decades between us, he was my friend. My real true friend. Our age difference didn’t matter-- in fact, it gave us each something neither of us had with most people," the 37-year-old wrote in part.
"We were from two different stages in life entirely--inspired. Losing Tony to Alzheimer’s has been painful but it was also really beautiful. An era of memory loss is such a sacred time in a persons life. There's such a feeling of vulnerability and a desire to preserve dignity. All I wanted was for Tony to remember how much I loved him and how grateful I was to have him in my life. But, as that faded slowly I knew deep down he was sharing with me the most vulnerable moment in his life that he could--being willing to sing with me when his nature was changing so deeply. I'll never forget this experience. I'll never forget Tony Bennett.
Bennett's life and memory was remembered by his wife, Susan Benedetto and his son, Danny, during a sit down with Today's Hoda Kotb on Thursday. In the interview, Benedetto reflected on her husband's relationship with Gaga.
"Well I think it was a tremendous gift to each of them. I loved it," she said. "And the fact that she could really help him ride out his career in such a great way."
According to Benedetto, her husband sang until the end, playing his first number 1 hit, "Because of You," a few days before this death.
"We were getting him up to exercise, and so it was easy to just latch onto the piano," she said. "And I said, ‘Ton, why don’t you get up and you can sing?’ You know, any excuse to just get him up. I said, ‘Why don’t you sing?’ He’s like, ‘What do you want to hear?’ I said, ‘How about singing 'Because of You'?' So he sang 'Because of You.'"
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