Amid the widespread backlash over #DanGasby’s decision to discuss his “new normal” as a caregiver to his celebrity wife of 26 years, Barbara “B” Smith, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and boyfriend to his live-in girlfriend, Alex Lerner, Gasby is, once again, defending his new lifestyle. But, this time, he’s insisting his wife encouraged him to move on before her disease worsened.
In a recent interview with PEOPLE, the former TV producer fired back at those who accused him of disrespecting his wife and taking advantage of her condition.
While he maintained that those that new the couple prior to his wife’s illness were all for his new lifestyle, other friends of the former model said he and his new girlfriend should be “ashamed.” But, according to Gasby, most naysayers are misinformed about the situation.
“They say I am disrespecting her,” Gasby said in the newest PEOPLE issue. “B told me to live, to go on, as I’ve told her.”
According to Gasby, years prior, as the two compiled their wills, the couple discussed the “in sickness and health” portion of their vows, as well as the future of their relationship ”should either of them become incapacitated.”
“B asked me to go on with my life,” he said. “Anyone who says B didn’t do that doesn’t know B. We wanted each other to be happy.”
Though Smith was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2013, according to PEOPLE, Gasby said she started showing signs years prior while she was still building her empire.
“What we would like people to know is that when somebody has Alzheimer’s, how devastating it is, how 24/7 it is, how draining it is,” he said, highlighting the fact that he refused to put Smith in a home. “You can be a caregiver and be loving to the patient and your loved one but you can still find some joy. It doesn’t need to be one or the other.”
