‘I Am Woman’ singer Helen Reddy dead at 78

Sept. 30 (UPI) — Australian singer-songwriter, feminist icon and TV personality Helen Reddy has died at age 78, her family announced.

Reddy was diagnosed with dementia in 2015. Her final years were spent being cared for at the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s Samuel Goldwyn Center for Behavioral Health in Woodland Hills.

An exact cause of death was not released.

“It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved mother, Helen Reddy, on the afternoon of September 29th 2020 in Los Angeles,” her children Traci Donat and Jordan Sommers wrote in a statement on Reddy’s official fan page on Facebook Tuesday.

“She was a wonderful Mother, Grandmother and a truly formidable woman. Our hearts are broken. But we take comfort in the knowledge that her voice will live on forever.”

Jeff Wald, Reddy’s former husband and manager, also confirmed her death.

“I am v sad to announce that my first wife of 18 years and the mother of my two oldest Traci & Jordan. Traci spent the morning with Helen and she passed soon after under the excellent care of the Motion & Television Home #Helen Reddy,” Wald tweeted Tuesday.

The Grammy-winning artist is best known for her hit 1960s and ’70s songs “I Believe in Music,” “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” “Delta Dawn” “Angie Baby,” “Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress),” “You and Me Against the World,” “Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady” and “I Can’t Hear You No More.”

Reddy frequently sang her feminist anthem, “I Am Woman,” at Democrat political events, particularly those advocating for women’s issues.

She was a popular guest on talk and game shows, hosted the short-lived variety program The Helen Reddy Show and starred in the films Pete’s Dragon and Airport ’75.

Her memoir, The Woman I Am, was published in 2006 and a dramatic film about her life — I Am Woman — was released this month.

Outside entertainment, Reddy worked for the California Department of Parks and Recreation 1977-80 and earned a degree in clinical hypnotherapy in 2002.