Hollywood superstar John Travolta has shared a short but touching tribute to his late son Jett to mark his birthday.
Taking to his Instagram account overnight, Travolta, 71, the star of hit movies including Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Pulp Fiction, shared a throwback photo of Jett when he was a young child along with the caption, “Happy birthday Jett – I miss you so much! Love you forever!”
Jett, whom Travolta shared with his late wife, Kelly Preston, died in 2009 during a family holiday in The Bahamas when he was just 16. Jett would have turned 33 on April 13.
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Jett was the eldest of the couple’s three children.
They also share Ella, who is 25. Their third child, son Benjamin, 14, was born in November 2010 – 18 months after Jett’s death.
Preston, 57, died in July 2020 after a private battle with breast cancer.
Jett was found unresponsive in the bathroom of a holiday home in The Bahamas and rushed to hospital where he was later pronounced dead. An autopsy found he had died as a result of a seizure.
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At the time, the couple released a statement which said, “Jett was the most wonderful son that two parents could ever ask for and lit up the lives of everyone he encountered.
“We are heartbroken that our time with him was so brief. We will cherish the time that we had with him for the rest of our lives.”
In 2012, Preston went on the TV show The Doctors to speak about her son’s medical conditions prior to his death.
“He was autistic. He had seizures and when he was very young, he had Kawasaki Syndrome,” she said at the time, adding they thought environmental factors had contributed to his ill health.
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The couple welcomed their third child, Benjamin, when Preston was 48 and Travolta was 56.
In 2021, Travolta revealed on Kevin Hart’s talk show Hart to Heart that he had a heartbreaking conversation with Ben soon after Preston’s death.
“Ben said to me once, ‘Because mum passed away, I’m afraid you’re going to’,” Travolta revealed.
“I said, ‘Well, it’s a very different thing’ and I went through the differences about my longevity and her limited life.”
He said he then told Ben the truth, that “nobody knows when they’re gonna go or when they’re going to stay”.
“[I said] ‘I could die tomorrow. You could. Anybody can. So let’s look at it like it’s part of life. You don’t know exactly. You just do your best at trying to live the longest you can’.”
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