Springsteen announced in an Instagram post that his mother, Adele Zerilli Springsteen, died Wednesday.
Adele Zerilli Springsteen, the longtime legal secretary, musical muse and concert dance partner who captured countless hearts in her son Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Nation and beyond, has died at 98.
Bruce Springsteen announced in an Instagram post that his mother died Wednesday. He shared a video of the two of them dancing to the Glenn Miller swing-era standard “In the Mood” with the caption “Adele Springsteen — May 4, 1925-January 31, 2024.” He then quotes at length from the lyrics for “The Wish,” one of his songs that invoke her.
“I remember in the morning mom hearing your alarm clock ring. I’d lie in bed and listen to you getting ready for work, the sound of your makeup case on the sink,” the post says.
The cause and other details were not immediately revealed, but Springsteen said in 2021 that his mother had been struggling with Alzheimer’s disease for a decade and could no longer speak or stand.
The mother of three — and the last of three Italian American Zerilli sisters — was a cornerstone of Bruce Springsteen’s anthem “American Land,” which honors “The McNicholases, the Posalskis, the Smiths, Zerillis too.”
The New York City native moved as a child to Freehold, never fathoming she’d someday bear offspring who’d turn New Jersey into lyrical legend.
