Willie Nelson on Kris Kristofferson’s Death: ‘I Hated to Lose Him’

When Kris Kristofferson died last month at the age of 88, Willie Nelson officially became the last-standing member of the legendary country supergroup The Highwaymen, a quartet that also included Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash.

“If you just take the music part of it and go back to, you know, Waylon [Jennings] and Kris and John[ny Cash] and, you know, all of us working together, the Highwaymen. And then I am the only one left. And that’s just not funny,” Nelson reflects in a new interview with AP News.

The singer was speaking to the publication about his new album Last Leaf on the Tree, which arrived on Friday (Nov. 1.)

The collection, which features both a diverse set of cover songs as well as a couple of originals, finds Nelson contemplating mortality, impermanence and his own status as one of the last living legends of the outlaw era of country music. Those are themes he’s explored often in recent releases, like 2018’s “Last Man Standing,” where he sings in one lyric, “It’s getting hard to watch my pals check out / Cuts like a worn-out knife.”

Nelson didn’t share any official statement in the days after Kristofferson’s death, though his close bond with the “Sunday Morning Coming Down” singer-songwriter is well-documented, on both personal and professional levels.

Now, though, he’s breaking his silence about the grief he felt after his friend’s death. “I hated to lose him,” Nelson says. “That was a sad time.”

He also made note of the hefty musical contributions that Kristofferson made to the genre. “He was a great songwriter,” Nelson points out. “He left a lot of fantastic songs around for the rest of us to sing, for as long as we’re here…Kris was a great friend of mine. And, you know, we just kind of had a lot of fun together and made a lot of music together — videos, movies.”

Kris Kristofferson died on Sept. 28, 2024. He was 88 years old.
No cause of death was immediately given.
His family issued a statement expressing their gratitude for the time they spent with him, and for his fans.
“Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all,” the statement read in part.

Even though much of his recent music has dealt with themes of mortality and dwindling time, the 91-year-old Nelson says he doesn’t spend much time worrying about his own death.

“I don’t feel bad. I don’t hurt anywhere. I don’t have any reason to worry about dying. But I don’t know anybody who’s lived forever,” he told AP News. “I take pretty good care of myself. And I feel like I’m in pretty good shape physically.

“Mentally? That’s another story,” he jokes.