Brian Johnson Cried Over Not Seeing Malcolm Despite Being In The Same Hospital

AC/DC frontman, Brian Johnson, broke into tears when he wasn’t able to see Malcolm Young.

Johnson wrote in his upcoming memoir, The Lives of Brian, about the time when Young was in the same hospital as him, but they were not allowed to see each other.

Known to their fans, Young retired in 2014 because of dementia and eventually died in 2017. Johnson, on the other hand, began to suffer hearing failure which led to surgery to treat the condition. In October 2015, Johnson was in his hospital bed in Sydney. He was greeted by a nurse who was smiling at him and told him, “Malcolm was a resident of the care facility just over the wall outside my window.” He recalled:

“That was where he was being treated for his early-onset dementia. I couldn’t believe it. Not only was Malcolm just 20 yards from me, but this nurse also did shifts over there – and one of his jobs was to take him out for his daily exercise.”

Delighted by the news, Johnson asked if he could see Young, but the nurse didn’t approve. Johnson continued:

“‘Sorry, mate, I can’t do that. It’s the family’s wishes,’ I told him I understood. In the next building was the man who I’d shared a stage with for 35 years, the man who’d hired me as the lead singer of AC/DC – the man who’d cared about me so much, he once visited my hometown to meet my parents. He’d even taken my dad for a pint at his club – I mean, who does that?”

He remembered he was shedding tears in front of a stranger and accepting the situation. However, he later discovered that Young’s wife, O’Linda, had put the rule in place. She had no choice but to do it after being told that it wasn’t clear how much memory Young still retained.

Johnson said, “O’Linda knew how proud Malcolm was – we all did,” “and she feared that if I or anyone outside his immediate family went in to see him, he might be embarrassed about his condition.”

Johnson understood that O’Linda “didn’t want to take that risk, especially given everything else that he was going through. She was just looking out for her husband like she always did. Malcolm’s sibling and bandmate, Angus Young, visited him, as did his grandchildren, who I’m told made him very happy. But it broke my heart all the same.”

The Lives of Brian memoir is set to arrive on October 25.