Jane McDonald has sold her beloved Wakefield bungalow, Cleevethorpe House, after the deaths of her mother and fiancé within three years. The 62-year-old singer and television personality had lived in the five-bedroom property for two decades and spent years renovating it.
Her mother Jean died just before Christmas in 2018, and her fiancé Eddie Rothe lost his battle with lung cancer in March 2021 at age 67. McDonald said the house held too many painful memories, telling the Daily Mail: 'I found it difficult. There was too much history there.'
McDonald has since bought a smaller house in the same area and a seaside retreat. She now lives with close friend Sue Ravey, whom she met as a fellow singer in her twenties. The pair appear together on Channel 4's Celebrity Gogglebox.
Sorting through two decades of possessions was difficult, requiring seven skips. McDonald said: 'You've got to let it all go. But Sue is great. She'll ask me: 'Why you holding onto this? Take a picture of it and bin it.''
This Christmas, McDonald spent the holiday with friends instead of family, as she had in the past. She said: 'Times change and you have to change with it. I'm now making new traditions... There is a positive side to grief, which is freedom.'
Last year, during filming for her travel series Jane McDonald: Lost in Japan, she became emotional after receiving a traditional Japanese fortune that predicted good luck. The fortune read: 'You could realise almost everything as if you could drive easily on a downhill road.'
