Fans of lifestyle guru B. Smith, who has Alzheimer’s, angry that husband has girlfriend

It was not a secret that Dan Gasby has a girlfriend.

He shared a picture of himself with Alex Lerner and his celebrity wife — former lifestyle maven/model/restaurateur B. Smith — on Instagram earlier this month. They were all smiling.

“Welcoming in 2019 with B Alex & Me!” he wrote. “So kind of people who understand “till death do you part!” Doesn’t mean cloistering yourself like a monk or living as a casualty of #alzheimers.”

Smith was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2013.

A Washington Post story this week explained this relationship further. “If ‘This is Us’ and ‘Modern Family’ came together, it would be us,” Gasby told the newspaper.

But some of Smith’s fans are angry that there’s another woman in her husband’s life.

“So disgusting,” an Instagram user named Treasure710 wrote on Gasby’s Instagram. “Doesn’t matter if it’s been one year or 26. Respect your wife or leave the relationship. She deserves to be with a respectful person. Just a sad situation. Him and this girl should be ashamed.”

Gasby, who is 64, has been married to Smith since 1992. According to “Today,” they “became business partners as well as husband and wife after initially meeting when he was the executive producer of the Essence Awards and she was a model and lifestyle expert.”

Smith’s biography, on B.Smth.com, describes the many hats she has worn in her career: “Restaurateur, magazine publisher, celebrity chef, and nationally known lifestyle maven,” and “a tag she never expected to add to that string: Alzheimer’s patient.”

“She has been heralded ... by The New York Daily News as ‘one of the most important African-American style mavens of all time,’ ” her bio says.

The Pennsylvania native began her career as a model — in July 1976, she became the first African-American woman on the cover of Mademoiselle magazine. She hosted a syndicated TV show, “B. Smith with Style,” wrote three “home entertaining books” and became the first African-American woman to have a home collection sold by a nationwide retailer, Bed Bath & Beyond.

“She ran three B. Smith restaurants: on Theatre Row in Manhattan; Sag Harbor, NY; and Washington DC,” says her bio. “But then her life changed.”

In 2016, after the couple wrote a memoir about the new fight in their life, Gasby described to People his role as a caregiver.

“It’s the toughest thing I’ve ever dealt with,” he said then. “Anybody who is an Alzheimer’s care giver knows exactly what other caregivers are going through. It’s 24/7. The complexity and the intensity of it is very tough.

“At times I feel like I am between the Titanic and the iceberg and the water is cold and it makes a difference which one I get on.”

Smith told “Today” in 2015 that she was dealing with Alzheimer’s “in a practical way. I know that I’ve got a problem. Sometimes it makes me teary. But because I have great support with my husband and my family, you know, I’m doing fine.”

She made a public service announcement for the Brain Health Registry to “encourage more people — especially minorities — to sign on to the registry and to volunteer for clinical trials looking for a cure for the disease,” “Today” reported.

In an interview with the Winston-Salem Journal in 2017, Gasby said that when Smith got the diagnosis “she looked at me and she says we’re not going to hide, we’re not going to let someone else define us. We’re going to tell our story.”

He told the Post that he met 53-year-old Alex Lerner, who is divorced and has three children, in the summer of 2017. Lerner told the newspaper she didn’t “want to go out with a married man,” but later understood that Gasby wasn’t cheating on his wife.

The Post reported that Lerner has a room in the East Hampton home Gasby and Smith share, and that she helps care for Smith when she is with her.

Gasby told the Post he has told his wife about Lerner but that it “doesn’t seem to register,” the newspaper wrote.

His daughter from another marriage approves of the relationship. “When he told me I was like, ‘Thank God. I’m happy,’ ” Dana Smith told the Post.

The hosts of ABC’s “The View,” who talked this week about the revelations about the couple, were not of one mind on Gasby having a girlfriend, reflecting the mixed reactions on social media.

Some people supported Gasby in comments they posted on his social media pages. “Having been exposed to this awful disease as a caretaker I truly believe the comfort of the patient is a priority,” one woman wrote on Instagram. “Do what ever works to maintain a happy environment. Don’t ask or feel you need let others tell you what works!”

“Also, not for nutin but many in your shoes would have bolted, ran away a long, long time ago,” another woman wrote on his Facebook page. “I think you are a real man. You didn’t run when things got rough. You persevered, loved and fought for B. We are human. Humans who need love.”

Gasby answered his critics on his Facebook page, calling out “bloggers who wallow in the mud and filth of lies” and “idiots and ignorant people calling for my arrest and saying B is or has ever been abused.”

He wrote: “I only wish someone in your immediate family has Alzheimer’s so you can see feel and experience the pain of millions of people across this country so you can know first hand what it’s like to care 24/7/365 for someone who can no longer care for themselves!

“...I love my wife but I can’t let her take away my life!

“...The clock is ticking I know I can and have manage this but can you do it too?”

In a new post on Wednesday, he pondered: “I just wonder if B was in the same situation would these same people lash out at her!”

This story was originally published January 30, 2019 at 11:19 AM.