Leicester star Gok Wan releases charity single in memory of best friend to support cancer fight

Leicester star Gok Wan has been gracing our TV screens for decades, offering the latest fashion advice and winning over viewers with his warmth and candour. He has since branched out to writing, acting and DJing but his latest project lies closest to his heart.

Wan's best friend Allison Gordon-Parry died in May after living with stage four cancer for several years. To channel his grief and to honour her memory, he has collaborated with the House Gospel Choir to create a new Christmas charity single edition of Aretha Franklin's hit Deeper Love, with all the profits going to Macmillan Cancer Support.

"One of the worst things that's ever happened to me is losing Al," says an emotional Wan, reflecting on his motivation for the project.

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"And when she passed away, I knew that I had to do something to keep her legacy alive. I knew that I had to do something which was going to help other people.

"It doesn't make it better, but it makes it right. I'm so angry with cancer. I hate cancer. I hate the fact that she's been taken away from us all. But I know that some good can also come out of that, and that's exactly what she would have wanted."

The pair met when Wan was booked as the face of a brand which employed Gordon-Parry. On the first day of working on a commercial together in Australia, the duo lay down on a bed and began listening to songs on Wan's phone, bonding over their love for Sandra Cross and Mica Paris.

"I just met her, but I knew that she was my soul mate, I knew that she was my life wife," he recalls with tears in his eyes.

"We'd lived in separate parts of the world, but we'd had exactly the same musical upbringing," the presenter, 50, adds.

"It was a real moment of: 'This is just incredible. This is what real love is about.' You find a space where both of you are just so excited and passionate and happy.

"And for us, it was music, and so it's only fitting that I now produce a track for her."

He believes she would probably tell him off for adding another project to his plate, but also feels she is cheering him on.

"She was fun and bright and ballsy," he says. "Oh my god, she had more nerve than anybody else in the world that I've ever met.

"But at the same time, in contradiction to that, she was also really shy and insecure and unsure as well, at the same time.

"But she was creative and brilliant company, and my god, had the most infectious laugh in the entire world."

Towards the end of her life, Wan says, she "changed a lot" and redirected her focus to "values and friendship and family and love" which is what he feels the song Deeper Love is all about.

"It's finding your deeper love and what do you leave behind you? We don't talk about death, because we're not supposed to talk about death. But of course, it happens to all of us," he says.

"It's the one thing all of us have got in common is we're all going to die. And Al was privileged enough, I guess, in some ways, to go on her terms. And so she found a way of finding a language around death, which has changed me as a person. It's made me re-evaluate every part of my life.

"She had the ability of putting value back into everything around her, and that's what I remember about her, and I think that's her biggest gift in her life."

Wan who rocketed to fashion fame in the 2000s with TV hits like How To Look Good Naked and Gok's Fashion Fix took his passion for music to the next level over a decade ago when he began DJing.

Before his days in television, he worked as music stylist on music videos so he already knew the industry was one he felt comfortable in, but establishing himself has been a challenge.

"It's been one of the hardest things that I've ever done convincing people that I'm not just a famous person that's playing out music," he admits. "That actually this is something I'm really passionate about and I want to do it."

Over the years, he has built his confidence through playing clubs and festivals throughout the UK and has released his own mixes.

"Unlike any other part of my career where I've been a bit ballsy and gone: 'Yeah, I can do this. I can be a makeup artist. I can be a stylist. I can be a TV presenter. I can be a cook on television' nothing's really ever scared me before," he reveals. "And I guess I went into it with a fearlessness or a bravado that got me through it.

"And then going into the music industry as a DJ, I didn't want to be known just as a gimmick DJ, just as a celeb that went up there that played tunes.

"I love music and I love producing music and I love taking people on a musical journey, and I wanted to be in the same category as anybody else. It doesn't have to be the top of the bill, but somebody that is respected for the work that they're doing."

After years of working on his craft, he feels he is getting to a "comfortable space" where is getting good bookings and has built a following.

"At the age of 50, I should have bought an allotment and taken up a really nice, relaxing hobby like wine tasting, not being the world's oldest DJ," he says with a chuckle.

"But we're kind of there now, and we're just going to run with it, we're just going to play with it."

Gok Wan and House Gospel Choir release Deeper Love (A Tribute to Allison) on December 13 to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support.