Adele Zerilli Springsteen, a longtime legal secretary, musical muse, and dance partner to Bruce Springsteen—in the family living room and later onstage—who captured the hearts of her son's fans, has died. Her son announced in an Instagram post that his mother died Wednesday, the AP reports. She was 98. Details were not released, though Bruce Springsteen had said she was struggling with Alzheimer's disease. "But the need to dance hasn't left her," he said in 2021, per the Mirror. Steven Van Zandt, a member of the E Street Band, tweeted Thursday that Adele Springsteen was the "matriarch of our family and an unrelenting source of inspiring positive energy. One of a kind."
The mother of three—and the last of three Italian American Zerilli sisters—appears in 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, New Jersey. When her son achieved stardom, Adele Springsteen's joyful, spirited charm made her a fan magnet in her own right. "Video evidence of Adele rocking out onstage with Bruce dates back to 1992," according to Rolling Stone. She was "real smart, real strong, real creative," with a "refusal to be disheartened," Bruce Springsteen told biographer Dave Marsh. And her influence ran deep.
Adele Springteen "held our family together" through years of hardship, the musician said in a 2010 Ellis Island speech, sharing the stage with his beaming mother and aunts. "I took after my mom in a certain sense. Her life had an incredible consistency, work, work, work every day, and I admired that greatly," he told Uncut magazine in 2002. "I'd visit her at her job sometimes, and it was filled with men and women who seemed to have a purpose," he added. "I found a lot of inspiration in those simple acts." In "The Wish," which he has described as a love song to his mother, Springsteen tells about her saving the money to buy him a guitar, as well as "pullin' me up on the couch to do the twist for my uncles and aunts."
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Although she usually danced with her son to "Dancing in the Dark" at concerts, Adele Springsteen branched out. In 2012, she danced and sang background on "Twist and Shout" at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium. In March 2016, when she was 90, mother and son hip-wiggled to the raucous "Ramrod" at New York's Madison Square Garden. Adele Springsteen also had two daughters, Pamela Springsteen and Virginia Shave. "All our children are nice children," Adele said in 1984, per People. "We're proud of all of them." Her husband and Bruce's father, Douglas, died in 1998. Bruce Springsteen's Instagram and Facebook pages have a video of him dancing offstage with his mother to Glenn Miller's version of "In the Mood," along with "The Wish" lyrics.
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