John Rutsey - Later Life

Later Life

Rutsey maintained a low media profile after Rush.

In an 1989 interview, Lifeson remarked, "John's still around. I see John quite often. He gave up playing shortly after he left the band and went into bodybuilding. He competed on an amateur level for a while, doing that for a few years, and has sort of been in and out of that, but he still works out, and I work out with him a few times a week at a local gym - at a Gold's, here in Toronto." However, in 2005, Lifeson said that he had not seen Rutsey since around 1990.

On May 11, 2008, Rutsey died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack, related to complications from diabetes. Rutsey's family wished to keep the funeral a private affair, although an obituary posted in the Toronto Star on May 15 suggested those wishing to pay tribute to Rutsey could do so by making a donation to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation of Ontario.