Layne Beachley has revealed that her father Neil has been diagnosed with dementia.
The legendary surfer, 51, revealed the heartbreaking family news on her Instagram page this month.
Alongside a photo of her and Neil looking at the camera, Layne wrote: ‘My dear old dad is battling dementia but still has the ability to smile, laugh and enjoy the simple pleasures of life.
‘As a family we kept him in his familiar surroundings for as long as possible until we moved him from his Manly home at the end of last year, which quickly affected his memory.’
Beachley added that she recently took her father to visit the Manly Life Saving Club, of which he was a lifelong member, and was overwhelmed to see a crowd turn out to support him.
Layne Beachley has revealed that her father Neil has been diagnosed with dementia. The legendary surfer, 51, revealed the heartbreaking family news on her Instagram page this month
The Sydney-born athlete told New Idea magazine this week that her rock star husband Kirk Pengilly, 65, helped her through this difficult time.
In 2020, Beachley talked about how her adoption propelled her to win seven world championships.
When she was just eight years old, the man Beachley believed to be her biological father broke the news that she was not related by blood and was put up for adoption as a baby.
Her birth mother was a 17-year-old aspiring model, living in Sydney from Glasgow, who was raped by a modeling agency employee.
Appearing on ABC’s Anh’s Brush With Fame, Beachley said she felt “worthless” when she heard the news, just a year after her adoptive mother died.
‘The more he spoke and the more reassuring he was, the bigger the couch became and the more it swallowed me up. I started to feel worthless,” the champion surfer said.
The Sydney-born athlete told New Idea magazine this week that her rock star husband Kirk Pengilly, 65, helped her through this difficult time.
In 2020, Beachley talked about how her adoption propelled her to win seven world championships
‘When you’re rejected by our own mother, you just think, “Wait a minute, I didn’t deserve my own mother’s love, who do I deserve?”
Beachley, who started surfing on Sydney’s northern beaches, made a pact with herself that day to become a world champion – and set her sights on surfing professionally.
She later married INXS saxophonist Kirk Pengilly in October 2010, and she credits him with helping her through some tough times.
The couple first met 20 years ago in Sydney’s Dee Why on the Northern Beaches after promising mutual friend Jon Stevens they would go on a date.