Strictly Come Dancing's new host Josh Widdicombe has revealed he was reduced to tears at a train station after the death of his family cat, Beryl, aged 11.
The comedian, who will present the BBC show with Emma Willis and Johannes Radebe from September, shared the news on the Parenting Hell podcast, which he co-hosts with Rob Beckett. He described the loss as "genuinely upsetting".
Devastating loss
Widdicombe said: "She just passed away overnight. It was incredibly upsetting for me and Rose (his wife Rose Hanson), I'll be honest. My daughter was very upset, but kids get over it incredibly fast."
He went on to describe how he broke down while waiting for a train to London shortly after the cat's death. He said: "I couldn't believe how upset I was. I didn't even care about cats when we got them. I actually had to get a train to London. And then I was on the platform at Exeter St Davids. I had to go into the toilet because I was crying. Just went into the toilet cubicle and sobbed."
Reflecting on grief
Widdicombe, who was a left-field choice to replace outgoing hosts Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly, also compared the grief of losing a pet to losing a human. He said: "There's something about an animal dying where if a human dies, you know, which is obviously much worse, just to put that first. There's a lot more questions when a human dies about what was my relationship like with them, should I have seen them more? Plus there's all that stuff back on yourself like 'oh my God, time's passing.' You don't get that with a cat, it's literally purely about feeling incredibly sad that the cat won't be there anymore."
He added that Beryl's ashes are kept in the same urn as her sister Eddie, on the mantelpiece at the family home in Devon. Concluding, he said: "Genuinely, I'm still not really over it. I know this sounds mad, but I'm struggling to connect with the other two cats. I feel resentful of them. I just wish it hadn't happened."
