Dame Esther Rantzen, the broadcaster and campaigner, has died aged 86, her family has announced. She died surrounded by loved ones at her home in the New Forest on Wednesday.
Her family paid tribute to their “adored mother”, describing her as “our sunshine” and remembering her “endless capacity for joy”. They said her “legacy of compassion and understanding will live on in her charities”.
Tributes from Prime Minister and charities
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Dame Esther had “changed countless lives and gave a voice to people who often went unheard”.
Her children, Miriam, Rebecca and Joshua Wilcox, said: “She was the most wonderful mother to us three children and a cherished grandmother to her five treasured grandchildren.”
The chief executive of the NSPCC, which runs Childline, described Dame Esther as a “unique and truly remarkable woman” who leaves behind an “extraordinary legacy”, estimating that millions of children had been helped in the 40 years since the helpline was founded.
Career and charities
Dame Esther was best known for hosting BBC consumer affairs show That’s Life! for 21 years from 1973 to 1994. The show became one of the most popular programmes on British television, blending consumer affairs with satire and investigating life-and-death issues.
She set up Childline in 1986 after a temporary helpline for viewers affected by a programme about a toddler who had starved to death was swamped with callers, mainly from children suffering sexual abuse they had never been able to disclose. She also launched The Silver Line in 2012 to tackle loneliness in older people.
Campaign for assisted dying
In later life, Dame Esther became a strong proponent for assisted dying after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in 2023. She openly discussed her plan to “buzz off to Zurich” to have an assisted death at Dignitas and criticised the “messy and cruel” law in England and Wales.
In mid-September, ahead of a vote by MPs which would see efforts to legalise assisted dying defeated in Parliament, she said it was now too late for her to travel, as she had become “too physically fragile to make the journey”.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who led an attempt at Westminster to legalise assisted dying, described Dame Esther as “a strong, warm and compassionate woman and a fighter to the end”. Campaign group Dignity in Dying hailed her for having “used her platform to speak truth to power”.
Her family asked for privacy and time to grieve, saying: “We are grateful she is finally at rest with her beloved husband, Desmond Wilcox, but we will miss her immeasurably.”
