Layne Beachley has revealed 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 beaming at the camera, Layne wrote: ‘My dear old dad is battling dementia but still has the capacity to smile, laugh and enjoy life’s simple pleasures.
‘As a family we kept him in his familiar surroundings for as long as possible until moving him out of his Manly home late last year, which rapidly impacted his memory.’
Beachley added she had recently taken her dad for a visit to Manly Life Saving Club, of which he had been a lifelong member, and was overwhelmed to see a crowd show up to support him.
Layne Beachley has revealed 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 this week’s New Idea magazine her rock star husband Kirk Pengilly, 65, was helping her through this difficult time.
In 2020, Beachley spoke about how being adopted pushed her to win seven world championship titles.
When she was just eight years old, the man Beachley thought was her biological father broke the news she was not blood-related and was put up for adoption as a baby.
Her biological mother was a 17-year-old aspiring model, living in Sydney from Glasgow, who was date-raped by a modelling agency employee.
Appearing on ABC’s Anh’s Brush With Fame, Beachley said hearing the news just a year after her adoptive mother died made her feel ‘worthless’.
‘The more he spoke and the more comforting he was, the bigger the couch grew and the more it swallowed me. I started feeling worthless,’ the champion surfer said.
The Sydney-born athlete told this week’s New Idea magazine her rock star husband Kirk Pengilly, 65, was helping her through this difficult time
In 2020, Beachley spoke about how being adopted pushed her to win seven world championship titles
‘Being rejected by our own mother…you just feel like, “Hang on, I wasn’t deserving of my own mother’s love who whose am I deserving of?”.’
Beachley, who began surfing at Sydney’s northern beaches, made a pact with herself that day to become a world champion – and set her sights on professional surfing.
She later married INXS saxophonist Kirk Pengilly in October 2010, and she credits him with helping her through some difficult times.
The couple first met in Sydney’s Dee Why on the Northern Beaches 20 years ago after promising mutual friend Jon Stevens they would go on a date.
