1 week Ago By BANG Showbiz
Dame Esther Rantzen hopes to be reunited with her late husband Desmond Wilcox after her death. The 84-year-old broadcaster was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in 2023 and she was being treated with a new drug that was keeping the disease "at bay", but it was recently revealed the medicine has stopped working and now Esther has opened up about her dream of seeing the love of her life again in the afterlife. She told The Times newspaper: "If there is a heaven, it would be a very happy place.
It's a lovely idea to meet Desmond again and all those I have loved and lost - my parents and grandparents, my close friends and family." Esther was married to Desmond - the father of her three children - for more than 20 years but she lost him in 2000 when he died aged 69 after suffering a heart attack. The TV star previously admitted she longed to see her husband again.
During an appearance on 'Piers Morgan’s Life Stories', Esther told the host: "Desmond’s last words to me were: 'I adore you'. I was sitting on his deathbed. "I will take those words with me to the grave.
I said to my son last night: ''If God gave me the choice between 10 more years of life and 10 more minutes with Desi, I would pick those 10 minutes'." Esther's daughter, Rebecca Wilcox, recently gave a heartbreaking interview in which she revealed her mother's cancer treatment is no longer working. Asked on '5 News' if the medication Esther is taking "was an improvement", Rebecca said: "I really wish that was true but I don't think that's the case anymore.
" The Childline founder and her daughter have been campaigning for assisted dying to be made legal in the UK and Esther had previously considered travelling to Switzerland's Dignitas clinic to end her life, but Rebecca revealed she would no longer be able to do that as a result of her current health situation. She said: "Frankly Dignitas is out of the window for us as well. You have to be relatively healthy to do that, if she had gone, she would have gone months before she would have died here.
" Last year, Esther spoke of how her medication had extended her life but was aware it wouldn't keep working forever. She told The Sunday Times newspaper: "It doesn’t cure it, it delays it - and at some point, it will stop working. But I have scans to see if it’s still working and at the moment it is.
I’m awfully glad I put in the tulips now. I’m having to make the same decision about my birthday [on June 22] — I didn’t think I’d ever be 84 and now it looks like I might be. I’m keeping everything crossed for that.
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