1973–2024
The family asked for privacy as they deal with their ‘immeasurable grief’
Much-loved TV presenter Jonnie Irwin has died from cancer at the age of 50, after bravely living with the disease for over three years.
The heartbreaking news was announced on his Instagram page last week in a post remembering the Escape to the Countr y star’s “kindness, warmth, and infectious spirit” and saying his family were asking for privacy as they navigated their “immeasurable grief”.
Jonnie first revealed that his cancer was terminal in a moving and emotional interview with HELLO! in November 2022. Two years earlier, he had been diagnosed with lung cancer, which had spread to his brain. It was while he was filming in Italy for A Place in the Sun that he first began to suspect that something might be wrong with his health.
“Within a week of flying back from filming, I was being given six months to live,” he told HELLO!.. “I had to go home and tell my wife, who was looking after our babies, that she was on her own, pretty much. That was devastating. All I could do was apologise to her. I felt so responsible.”
But Jonnie, who shared son Rex, now five, and three-year-old twins Rafa and Cormac, with his wife Jessica, 41, tried to stay positive about his diagnosis – and in November he celebrated his 50th birthday.
TRIUMPHING OVER ADVERSITY
“I never thought I’d be here for this, so I’m chuffed to bits,” Jonnie told us at th
