Paul O'Grady's husband issues update on five dogs after his death

Paul O'Grady's husband Andre Portasio said he wants to continue building on the Merseyside-born legend's charitable legacy.

Andre sat down with the Loose Women panel to talk about plans to continue making a difference in Paul's memory. The 67-year-old comedian died last year from sudden cardiac arrhythmia.

Andre told Coleen Nolan that Paul "never changed" despite his celebrity status and he was always "the boy from Birkenhead". He added: "That’s how he saw himself, he never saw himself as a celebrity or a star.”

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Andre also shared an update on the five dogs he shared with Paul. He said: “I opened this letter and it was this old lady, I think she was 85, and she was very worried about the dogs and that the dogs had to say goodbye. That stayed at the back of my mind, and I thought I must attend to what she’s asking me to do.

“So, just before he was buried, I took the dogs to say goodbye and it was really interesting to see that some of them engaged with Paul but others just ‘sweeped’ out, as if he wasn’t there.”

Asked by Coleen ‘how the dogs are doing now’, Andre replied: “They’re doing fabulous!” Discussing Paul’s charity work, Andre said that he feels "very responsible for what [Paul] started".

He said: "[Paul] was so many facets. He was a great radio DJ, broadcaster, performer and everything else but aside from that, I think he was also very charitable. I think something no one really realised is that most of the charity work that he’s done, was very private. So, I feel I need to take the legacy forward and continue helping the organisations that he helped but also taking it further, so that he can outlive me in that sense."

He told the panel: "Just before he passed away, he said to me, ‘Let’s walk the dogs, I have something to show you’ and the surprise was the fruit trees. We had recently built a guest cottage in the grounds and he was looking to do the garden around it. So, he bought those fruit trees and when he passed away, I felt ‘I cannot enjoy them alone’.

“It needs to be somewhere that other people can enjoy and he’d done a lot of work with the primary school in our village so I phoned them up. I’m good friends with the head teacher and I was like, would you mind having the trees and he was like, ‘Of course’.

"So we had a little ceremony with all the kids and they helped me plant the trees and just before I got there, obviously I had to introduce the idea to the children and I said to them, ‘Do you know who Paul O’Grady was?’ and bare in mind that all these children are seven, eight years old and the first answer was like, ‘He was a drag queen!’ which shows that for a child of seven to know who Lily Savage was, it really highlights his impact.”

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