David Cassidy Says He Is Battling Dementia

Sad news from '70s teen idol David Cassidy: The 66-year-old star says he is battling dementia, as his mother and grandfather did before him. "I was in denial, but a part of me always knew this was coming," Cassidy tells People. He says he watched his mother "disappear" into the disease before her death. "In the end, the only way I knew she recognized me is with one single tear that would drop from her eye every time I walked into the room," he says. "I feared I would end up that way." Cassidy, best known for starring as Keith Partridge in The Partridge Family, says that after almost 50 years in the music business, he has decided to stop touring.

"I want to focus on what I am, who I am, and how I've been without any distractions," Cassidy says. "I want to love. I want to enjoy life." Reuters reports that Cassidy's decision to go public with his battle with dementia follows concerts at small venues in California over the weekend where he was filmed struggling to remember the words of his songs and, at one point, apparently falling off the side of a small stage. (More David Cassidy stories.)