The Rush drummer Neil Peart was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, three years prior to his passing at the start of 2020. The drummer’s sister, Nancy Peart recently sat down with Etcetera’s Kelly Barrett and opened up about her brother’s passing and how they struggled to keep his condition a secret.
When asked whether she and the family were prepared for Neil’s passing, Nancy explained:
“We had three and a half years to prepare, so we knew it was coming. And then once it happened, we had that week of radio silence where we couldn’t tell anybody. And then we got — I think we had 10 minutes’ notice before it was going live to the world.”
Nancy recalled the 10 minutes they had to inform everyone they knew before it became public information. She added:
“So we had 10 minutes to tell everyone that we hadn’t told in three and a half years that, ‘Sorry, we lied. Everything’s not okay.’ So, yeah, it was a really hard — that week was the hardest week that we went through because we knew and couldn’t share it.”
Neil’s passing was announced three days later. Although the family asked for privacy during their difficult time Nancy shared how the following days went by sharing:
“Oh, our messages were blowing up. My daughter finally turned her phone off. She’s also a musician. She’s in the [music] world. And she actually wrote a song that week called ‘Radio Silence’ because we were under radio silence. It played at ‘A Night For Neil’ [memorial event]. It was incredible. So, yeah, it was a very surreal week.”
Regarding the 10 minutes, Nancy recalled how shocked everyone was as they had been keeping Neil’s condition under wraps. She added:
“But that 10 minutes was, like… I can’t even remember who I called in that 10 minutes. Everybody I knew, well, I had to message them all at once, because we knew we had 10 minutes. And then just as one of my best friends got my message, it was on the radio. And then all of them, of course, were getting called because their families all know the connection and that had 45 years with him, technically. So, yeah, it was a shock that went around the world, that’s for sure.”
You can watch Nancy Peart’s interview with ‘Etcetera With Kelly Barrett’ below.
