Comedian Jo Brand has said she would be open to assisted dying in the future, reflecting on her own mortality as she approaches her 70th birthday next year.
In a new interview, Brand addressed the importance of being given the option to "end your life", a move that has not yet been passed into law. She told The Guardian: "Now's the time, if you want things, to get them in place. I think a lot of people say, 'I really want to do that, but I'll forget it for now.' And then they get to a stage where they can't."
When pushed on whether she meant in terms of a bucket list, she said: "I mean the ability to perhaps end your own... I know it's not legal yet, but I think it will be, sooner rather than later."
Support for end-of-life choice
Brand has supported organisations in the past such as Dignity In Dying, which campaigns for legal reform around end-of-life choices. In September, MPs rejected the assisted dying bill after a tense vote in the Commons. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill failed to pass, with 286 votes against and 270 in favour. It would have allowed terminally ill people in England and Wales with fewer than six months to live to seek an assisted death, subject to approval by doctors and legal professionals.
Brand's mother Joyce died aged 86 in 2021 after contracting Covid alongside other health complications. Joyce was reported to have obtained drugs to end her own life when she was ill, although she did not use them.
Grief and personal losses
The comedian also opened up about dealing with grief, having experienced tragedy over the last 10 years. She lost both of her parents, both brothers, and two of her three best friends. Her brothers Matt and Bill died in 2016 and 2021 respectively, after both were given cancer diagnoses. Her father had been living with dementia and was moved into a care home before his death.
Reflecting on grief, she said: "I've been very good at suppressing my emotions. I was always taught not to show any weakness in public, which used to be just a bloke's thing, didn't it? So I probably haven't handled it all very well – I just pretended it wasn't happening for a long time because I couldn't believe how awful it was."
Health and family
Brand also discussed her worries about living in a care home after witnessing male staff's "appalling" behaviour at a residential home for adults with learning disabilities, where she worked as a teenager. She was fired after making complaints, which she says were not investigated. "That was in the 70s. Are they that different now? Who knows?" the star went on. "I can't imagine I can persuade any of my family to get interested in looking after me."
She wrote about coping in her new book Decline and Falling Over. "So yes, I'm not terribly good at grief, because I'm not terribly good at acceptance, either – I don't think I've done that yet at all," she wrote. Brand has two grown-up daughters, Maisie and Eliza, with her husband, Bernie Bourke. She revealed she has given up smoking in a bid to improve her health, but has instead taken up vaping, and claimed it is "too late for her to go to the gym every 10 minutes".
