Jonnie Irwin's wife explains TV star's cause of death for first time

The wife of TV presenter Jonnie Irwin has spoken in an interview for the first time since his death - and revealed the cause of his sad passing. Jessica said the A Place in the Sun host lives on in his three sons - after he sadly died in February after a long battle with cancer.

The 50-year-old originally from Leicestershire had three boys - Rex, five, and three-year-old twins Rafa and Cormac and in a post on Instagram Jess said of the interview with Hello! Magazine: “A world Jonnie was brilliant in, a job that made him and others smile. For me I would rather sit back and watch my favourite shine.

"But Hello was something Jonnie started and I felt it was right I honoured him in doing this interview to close that chapter for him. I miss him more than anyone can ever imagine and so desperately wanted him to be doing this with me still. Thank you @hellomag for the kind team that have been with us the whole journey. Jonnie proud on another level today of everything you did for me and the boys xxx.”

Jonnie also presented Escape to the Country on the BBC and Jess, who lives in Newcastle-upon-Tyne revealed that he died from a lung infection his body was too weak to shake off. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2020, which spread to his brain.

Speaking about the week he died Jessica said: “That whole week, I kept thinking: ‘This can’t be it,’ because we were always told there would be a neurological decline. Two weeks before, he’d been playfully giving me grief for something, so I was still trying to get him to make plans and telling him off when I felt he was being negative. Now I wonder, did he know?

“That’s what makes me really, really, really sad, when I think what must have been going through his mind.” And she said the young twins didn’t see him right at the end but Rex did: “Rex went up to show him something, very close to the end, and I think he knew something wasn’t right because he kissed Jonnie’s hand.”

And speaking of her relationship with him she said: “We weren’t best friends, we were lovers; there was passion.”