Captain and Tennille’s Toni Tennille Releases Statement on Ex-Husband Daryl Dragon’s Passing

Shortly after the passing of Captain & Tennille’s “Captain,” Daryl Dragon, Toni Tennille — the other half of the popular ’70s duo — spoke out about her ex-husband in a statement.

According to CNN, Tennille, who was married to Dragon for almost 40 years, was by his side in the last moments of his life as per his publicist, Harlan Boll.

“He was a brilliant musician with many friends who loved him greatly,” Tennille said in a statement. “I was at my most creative in my life when I was with him.”

The duo’s best-known and beloved hits included the likes of, “Muskrat Love,” “Do That to Me One More Time,” and “Love Will Keep Us Together.”

The two, whose first album produced the hit single, “Love Will Keep Us Together,” married in 1974 and later divorced in 2014. However, despite the differences, Dragon and Tennille stayed the best of friends.

In 2016, Tennille revealed to The Washington Post that while the two were close and remained that way for years, their marriage was “a lie.”

“Here I was a newly married woman with a hit record and a Grammy, living the dream that so many artists aim for,” Tennille recalled to the publication.

But while the two enjoyed the success of five albums certified gold or platinum, scoring numerous hits and hosted their own television variety series on ABC in 1976-1977, she felt lonely and isolated from her husband.

“The man whom I’d thought was my soul mate was in many ways just as remote as a stranger passing by through the fog,” she admitted.

However, in an interview with the TODAY Show that April, she goes on to say how she loved Dragon deeply and what caused their breakup after four decades.

“I loved him with all my heart,” said the 75-year-old Tennille. “But what I was projecting on him was something he could never be and I didn’t know that at the time.”

She adds that their relationship failed due to intimacy issues, telling TODAY that “Sex is not love, sex is not intimacy.”

“He just couldn’t be affectionate, he couldn’t just give me a hug. … And I don’t blame him because he came from a very, very difficult family and he had a famous but overbearing father… He was raised quite differently than I was,” she said, adding how none of it was his fault.

During the interview, Tennille said their marriage lasted for as long as it did because the two were trying to “fix things.”

“I kept trying and trying and thinking I could bring this man who has so much to give into the light,” she said. “I wanted him to experience the joy that I had with my very loving family.”

Dragon, whose signature captain’s hat left an impression with fans for years and in popular culture, died of renal failure while in hospice at the age of 76 in Prescott, Arizona on Wednesday.

Dragon’s publicist, Boll tells CNN that donations can be made in the Captain’s name to organizations committed to research into brain disease and conditions such as Parkinson’s Disease or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Photo credit: Michael Ocus Archives / Getty