George Harrison’s Family Sued His New York City Doctor for Allegedly Exploiting George in His Last Days
George Harrison‘s family sued the former Beatle’s New York City doctor for allegedly exploiting him as his health deteriorated in 2001. Dr. Gil Lederman treated George at Staten Island University Hospital for weeks before the guitarist and his family decided to seek treatment in Los Angeles, where George died on Nov. 29.
George Harrison’s New York City doctor started treating him in the fall of 2001
In 1997, doctors diagnosed George with throat cancer. They successfully removed a lump, and George underwent radiation treatments in London. Shortly after becoming cancer-free, George almost died in a home invasion in 1999, which left him with multiple stab wounds and a collapsed lung.
In March 2001, doctors at the Mayo Clinic diagnosed him with lung cancer. That May, he underwent successful surgery to remove a growth. However, by the summer, his cancer had spread to his brain.
Immediately, George and his wife, Olivia, started a worldwide search for treatment. He began receiving cobalt treatments for a brain tumor at the San Giovanni hospital in Switzerland. Amidst everything, George attended his son Dhani’s graduation from Brown University and vacationed in Fiji. Then, he bathed in the Ganges River in India and returned to Europe to work on some friends’ albums.
More cobalt treatments in Switzerland didn’t work. However, in November, George and Olivia heard of Lederman, the then-director of the Radiation Oncology program at Staten Island University Hospital in New York.
Lederman’s program focused on “pinpoint delivery of high doses of radiation aimed directly at the tumor to avoid as much healthy brain tissue as possible,” Rolling Stone wrote. It was “not touted as a cure for a patient in the final stages of cancer.” However, the technique did provide some relief.
Lederman said if the patient is pain-free, they can get off narcotics and share their remaining time with their family coherently. George stayed in a house on Staten Island while receiving his treatment. The doctor was allegedly in the room the day George’s former bandmates, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, visited him for the last time.
“It was a spirited affair,” Lederman claimed, “not a somber one. There were lots of laughs and lots of fun. There were tears, but George remained very much the man of dignity. At the end, after both Paul and Ringo had left, he was fine and calm. He was a very happy man. This meeting meant so much to him.”
George’s doctor allegedly exploited him as his health weakened
Lederman seemingly bonded with George during his treatment. “I feel like a brother to him,” Lederman told another physician at the hospital. George’s doctor thought they were close enough that he could make an “unconventional” house call, New York Magazine wrote, the night before George was to depart for L.A., where he died two weeks later.
“Depending on whose version you believe, Lederman either had a touching visit with Harrison or bullied a dying man in a declining mental state into creating a valuable piece of rock-and-roll memorabilia.”
George’s family claim Lederman showed up uninvited and told his son to play George a song on his guitar. After his son finished, Lederman placed the guitar in George’s lap and asked him to sign it.
“I do not even know if I know how to spell my name anymore,” George allegedly said. “C’mon, you can do this,” said Lederman, who proceeded to guide George’s hand to sign.
Lederman insisted that George invited him and his sons over and agreed to sign the guitar. The shaky signature on the guitar is “inconclusive.” Lederman also told another doctor that George offered to autograph things for him, saying, “I can make you a very rich man,” to which Lederman politely declined, saying, “I’m already a rich man. I don’t need you to autograph for that purpose.”
Considering how George felt about Beatles memorabilia, it’s hard to believe he’d be willing to sign autographs to make Lederman a “very rich man.”
“Some doctors who saw the two together say they looked like close friends,” New York Magazine wrote. “‘That’s ridiculous,’ says another source who was at the hospital every day. ‘You might have seen Lederman behaving tenderly. But George was barely coherent at times.'”
Another friend claimed, “Gil said George Harrison didn’t want anybody else taking care of him. He wanted Gil to be on 24/7.”
Whatever happened, those closest to George, his wife, Olivia, and their son, Dhani, witnessed Lederman’s malpractice.
The former Beatle’s family sued Lederman
Whatever Lederman thought about his relationship with George, the former Beatle’s family witnessed malpractice, and not just during Lederman’s alleged unannounced visit. New York Magazine wrote that the “feeling that Lederman intended to use” George “to promote his treatment” set off alarm bells for George’s family.
Lederman appeared on The Early Show with Bryant Gumbel, who introduced him as the doctor treating George. After the former Beatle died, George’s doctor gave “touching anecdotes” to Good Morning America, CNN, NBC, Fox News, Us Weekly, Newsweek, the New York Post, the Daily News, various British tabloids, and the National Enquirer.
“He told reporters about the spiritual quest that led Harrison to India, how the Harrison he knew was a simple man who would have been happy planting trees, and how Harrison was in no pain and wasn’t afraid of death,” New York Magazine wrote.
Lederman told Rolling Stone, “He faced the end with great humor and courage. He believed that death is part of life and had no fear of death. Sometimes it made those around him uncomfortable. but he was totally fearless about it.”
All of the publicity was good for the doctor. Each news report called him a “top cancer specialist” who “pioneered” a “revolutionary cancer surgery” that had a “90 percent success rate.”
Finally, Olivia had enough. To get Lederman to stop talking about George, she filed a complaint with the State Board of Professional Medical Conduct. They fined and censured Lederman for revealing personal details about his patient.
To prevent him from potentially selling the autographed guitar on eBay, she also gave him a $10 million lawsuit. In his settlement, Lederman agreed to dispose of the guitar and all autographs. He also agreed not to speak further about George or the lawsuit. The same week Olivia filed the lawsuit, SIUH announced they were replacing Lederman as director of radiation oncology.
Still, according to one doctor, Lederman blamed everything on Olivia being “a little jealous that [George’s] attention was being devoted more to Gil than to her.” Since his lawsuit against George’s family, Lederman has been involved in multiple malpractice lawsuits.
Whether Lederman’s treatment helped or not, George got to leave his body the way he wanted and “lit the room” when his soul departed for the spiritual realm.
