Good Morning Britain presenter Rob Rinder has announced that his father has died aged 73. The TV judge, 48, said his father passed away surrounded by his family in an emotional statement on social media.
His father, David, died following a battle with Lewy body dementia (LBD). LBD is a progressive brain disorder which affects thinking, movement, sleep and behaviour, and is one of the most common forms of progressive dementia, alongside Alzheimer's disease.
Childhood photo shared with tribute
Sharing a childhood photo of himself with David, Rob wrote: "My dad died yesterday aged 73. I wasn't sure whether to share this but if it brings attention to an illness too few people understand, perhaps it belongs here." He described his relationship with his father as complicated but loving, saying that despite their differences, he never doubted how proud his father was of him.
He continued: "A London cabbie & lifelong Spurs supporter, he was there for every one of my brothers' and his grandsons' football matches."
"I once represented him at the Carriage Office for bad driving; I loved him but the prosecution had a case… My parents divorced when I was little so I did not grow up with him at home."
"We were very different men. I loved opera and all its drama; he loved Tottenham and cigarettes. We both took people as we found them and we both loved women, though in rather different ways. I never once doubted his pride in me."
Final years and family background
Rob added: "When I came out he responded with magnificent indifference: I was still his son, there was nothing else to discuss. In the last years of his life Jewish Care became his home, a place where dignity and tenderness were practised every day."
"Walid and Tosin, among so many others there, cared for him and came to kiss him goodbye. A Jewish man, held in his final days by people of different faiths: a quiet reminder that what is sacred in us is also what we share."
"He died with his family around him, loved and held to the last. Funny, beautifully flawed, loving and my dad. Lewy body dementia took him far too young."
The presenter went on: "It made the familiar strange and the certain uncertain. Dementia can obscure a person but it does not erase them."
"At least one in ten people living with dementia has Lewy body's, around 125,000 people in the UK yet it remains poorly understood, frequently missed & desperately under-researched."
"Please learn its name, learn its signs and if you can support the work to change that."
Rob and his younger brother Craig were raised by their single mother Angela Cohen following their parents' divorce. Born into a Jewish family, Rob was awarded an MBE in 2021 alongside his mother, Angela, in recognition of their services to Holocaust education.
