Musician and “A Star is Born” actor Kris Kristofferson died Saturday at the age of 88, his family said.

“It is with heavy hearts that we share the news that our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully at home on Saturday, September 28,” Ebie McFarland, a family spokesperson, said in a statement to NBC News . . “We are all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these years, and when you see a rainbow, know that he is smiling at us all.”

How did Kris Kristofferson die?

Kristofferson’s family did not share a cause of death. In the statement, they shared that he died “peacefully” at home.

The singer and his family had been open about some of his health issues before his death. Here’s what they shared.

Memory loss

Kristofferson began suffering from debilitating memory loss around the age of 70, Reuters reported.

Initially, doctors thought it was Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, according to a 2016 Rolling Stone article. He had played contact sports in his teens, which can increase the risk of certain cognitive diseases.

Rolling Stone reported that Kristofferson could no longer remember what he was doing from one moment to the next, and eventually wrote a song about his memory loss.

“I see an empty chair / Someone was sitting there,” the song’s lyrics read. “I feel like it was me/And I see a glass of wine/I’m pretty sure it’s mine.”

Lyme disease

According to Rolling Stone, Kristofferson tested positive for Lyme disease in 2016. Lisa Meyers, Kristofferson’s wife, told Rolling Stone that she thought he was bitten by a tick while he was filming the 2006 movie “Disappearances.”

Meyers said her husband was taking medications for Alzheimer’s disease and depression, but many of his symptoms disappeared after he stopped taking them and completed a three-week course of treatment for Lyme disease.

“He was on all these medications for things he doesn’t have, and they all have side effects,” she said.

She said she was shocked by his condition after treatment for Lyme disease.

“Suddenly he was back,” she said, adding that there were still bad days, but “some days he’s completely normal and it’s easy to forget he’s even fighting something.”

Meyers described her husband’s first symptoms in a 2016 interview with LymeDisease.org.

“About 12 years ago he was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which in retrospect should have been the first indication that testing for Lyme was warranted,” she said. “But we suspect he was infected with Lyme between the ages of 14 and 30 because he had chronic muscle spasms, which is a common symptom.”

Kristofferson’s fibromyalgia left him in so much pain that he couldn’t work for eight months, Meyers said.

“He had huge, painful spasms all over his back and legs – it was so horrible – his nerve endings were causing painful contractions the size of a golf ball which we controlled with acupuncture, heat and massage, and eventually a spinal cord cortisone injection by a rheumatologist and a low dose antidepressant,” she explained.

“He had sore knees and annual knee shots, a pacemaker for cardiac arrhythmias — which we now know could be from Lyme,” Meyers said.

After a year of taking iron supplements, Meyers said her husband did not look healthy, and she took him to another doctor.

“When he examined Kris and saw the muscles in his forearms twitching continuously, the doctor announced, ‘He has Lyme disease’ and ordered a blood test,” she said, adding that the test came back positive in February 2016.

Sleep apnea

After filming “Disappearances,” Kristofferson was diagnosed with moderate to severe sleep apnea, Meyers said. He tried a two-level CPAP machine but refused to use it, she added.

A bypass operation

According to Rolling Stone, Kristofferson underwent bypass surgery in 1999.

Coronary artery bypass surgery requires taking a healthy blood vessel from the chest or leg and using it to create a new path for blood to flow around a blocked or partially blocked artery in the heart, according to Mayo Clinic.

As he was wheeled into the operating room, a doctor told Meyers and Kristofferson it would be a good place to say goodbye, Rolling Stone reported.

“I hope it’s not goodbye,” she said.

He replied, “So what if it is?”

Retirement in 2020 at the age of 84

Kristofferson made the decision to retire in 2020, but this was not announced until 2021, according to Variety.

“Kris is getting older; Kris is 84. It didn’t feel like big news to us. That’s why there was no announcement: it was just a slow changing of the guard,” Kristofferson’s longtime manager Tamara Saviano told Variety.

“It doesn’t feel like retirement, because Kris’ music isn’t going anywhere. There will still be new projects,” she said, referring to archival or tribute works. “But he won’t be on the road again.”

Saviano denied that Kristofferson retired because of his health.

“Kris’ oeuvre will live on – and hopefully he will live on for much longer,” says Saviano. “He is very healthy and in good shape.”