Gibb’s hidden pain
Robin Gibbs of the Bee Gees has suffered through the deaths of his younger brother Andy, his father, and his twin brother, Maurice.
Robin Gibb is a haunted man, says Olga Craig in the London Telegraph. The onetime Bee Gee’s family has been rocked by a series of deaths since 1988, when his younger brother Andy died of heart failure at 30 after a long struggle with booze and drugs. Then, four years later, Gibb’s father passed away from what Gibb believes was a broken heart. “When Andy died my dad just crumbled. He gave up, lost all faith in life. He was consumed by guilt that he hadn’t been there on the day for Andy.” Gibb feels the same sort of irrational guilt over the 2003 death of his twin brother and fellow Bee Gee, Maurice, from complications from a treatable intestinal problem. Gibb hadn’t even known his twin was sick. “I got a phone call from his assistant saying he was in a coma. I was like, ‘What do you mean? When did he go into hospital?’ I was in shock.’’ The grief, he says, is ever present. “I think about Maurice at unpredictable times. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about him. One is a twin for life. I’m forever seesawing between the two realities: one that it happened and the other that it didn’t have to.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
80 dead in Colombia amid uptick in guerrilla fighting
Speed Read This was the country's deadliest wave of violence since the peace accords set by President Gustavo Petro in 2016
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Trump starts term with spate of executive orders
Speed Read The president is rolling back many of Joe Biden's climate and immigration policies
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Trump pardons or commutes all charged Jan. 6 rioters
Speed Read The new president pardoned roughly 1,500 criminal defendants charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published