Brian Wilson, founding musician of the Beach Boys, has died.

Brian Wilson, the legendary singer, songwriter, and co-founder of The Beach Boys, has passed away at the age of 82. The announcement came from his family on June 11, 2023, requesting privacy during their time of mourning.

“We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away. We have no words at this time. Please respect our privacy as we mourn. We know we share this pain with the world. Love & Mercy,” his loved ones stated.

While the official cause of death remains undisclosed, it’s known that Wilson had been battling  dementia  since 2024. This health condition prompted a California court to grant a legal guardianship for his care after the death of his wife,  Melinda Ledbetter Wilson .

Documents from judicial proceedings cited by Far Out Magazine indicated that the musician was unable to give informed consent regarding appropriate medication for major neurocognitive disorders, including  dementia . Judge Gus T. May appointed long-time publicist Jean Sievers and manager LeeAnn Hard as co-guardians.

This guardianship was requested by the family shortly after the passing of Melinda, who had been a crucial emotional support for nearly three decades.

Wilson and Ledbetter married in 1995, and he credited her as “more than my wife. She was my savior. She gave me the emotional security I needed to have a career. She encouraged me to make music that was closest to my heart. She was my anchor.”

Wilson struggled with mental disorders since the 1960s. He experienced multiple  nervous breakdowns , the first occurring in 1964 during a flight between Los Angeles and Houston, prompting him to withdraw from live performances with The Beach Boys.

For years, he was misdiagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia until it was corrected to  bipolar disorder . He also battled substance abuse and endured one of the most toxic relationships in music history with therapist  Eugene Landy , who controlled his life for over a decade.

As noted by Variety, his personal story “descended into darkness worthy of a Raymond Chandler novel.” His father,  Murry Wilson , subjected him to emotional and physical abuse from a young age, though he also encouraged his musical ear development.

Brian Douglas Wilson was born on June 20, 1942, in Inglewood, California, and grew up in nearby Hawthorne. Despite partial deafness in his right ear, he showed a precocious talent for the piano and vocal arrangements. Alongside brothers  Dennis  and  Carl , cousin  Mike Love , and friend  Al Jardine , he formed The Beach Boys in the early 1960s, marking the birth of what became known as the “California sound.”

The band burst onto the music scene with summer anthems like “Surfin’ U.S.A.”, “I Get Around”, “Fun, Fun, Fun”, and “California Girls”, all written or co-written and produced by Wilson. From 1962 to 1966, The Beach Boys achieved ten top-10 hits and seven more entries into the top-40, comparable to their artistic rivals, The Beatles.

“During the 60s, when they were at the peak of their original popularity, The Beach Boys spread their own variant of the American Dream,” noted critic Jim Miller in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll.

In 1966, Wilson pushed his artistic ambitions to the limit with Pet Sounds, considered one of the most influential albums of the  20th century . Although it was a relatively commercial failure at the time, its impact was felt immediately among musicians. Paul McCartney once stated that “God Only Knows” was “the best song ever written.” Both he and producer  George Martin  cited the album as a key inspiration for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

That same year, Wilson composed and produced “Good Vibrations.” The song topped the charts and was announced as part of his ambitious and experimental project Smile, described by Wilson himself as a “teenage symphony to God.” However, disagreements with bandmates and pressure from the Capitol record label led to its cancellation in 1967. The album became a rock enigma, only reconstructed by Wilson in 2004.

By the 1970s, Wilson became increasingly erratic. His public appearances became rare and concerning. In 1982, he was formally removed from The Beach Boys, shortly thereafter falling under the near-total control of Landy. The psychologist even received co-author credit for several songs on the album Brian Wilson (1988), although his name was later removed. It wasn’t until 1992 that Landy was legally removed from Wilson’s life.

In the 2000s, Wilson experienced an unexpected artistic redemption. With a new band that included members of pop group  The Wondermints , he began performing Pet Sounds live. In addition to finally completing Smile as a solo project, he released  albums  like That Lucky Old Sun (2008), Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin (2010), and No Pier Pressure (2015). In 2012, he briefly reunited with The Beach Boys for the album That’s Why God Made the Radio, which reached number three in sales in the U.S.

Brian Wilson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2000. His influence spans generations of musicians, from Paul McCartney to contemporary psychedelic pop bands.

His life has been depicted in documentaries and films like Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times (1995) and Love & Mercy (2014), where he was portrayed by  Paul Dano  and  John Cusack . In 2022, he completed his final tour, officially bidding farewell to the stages.

He is survived by daughters Carnie and Wendy, who achieved success in the 90s with the group  Wilson Phillips , along with two adopted daughters, Daria and Delanie, born from his second marriage with Melinda Ledbetter, who passed away in 2024.