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Brave Place In The Sun star Jonnie Irwin reveals why he kept his cancer diagnosis secret for two years
JONNIE Irwin kept his cancer diagnosis a secret for two years over fears he'd lost TV work if producers found out he was dying.
The former A Place in The Sun host, 49, who says he was axed from the show when he told bosses he was sick, says he kept quiet about his illness because he wanted to provide for his young family.
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Jonnie was given just six months to live when he was diagnosed with lung cancer, which had spread to his brain, in August 2020.
Medication, radiotherapy and chemo have kept him alive.
He had been filming A Place in the Sun in Italy when he became ill — and says producers paid him off and failed to renew his contract after he told them he had cancer.
Now thin and stripped of his blond hair by chemotherapy, he said: “As soon as people find out you’ve got cancer they write you off.
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“Yes, I have stage four and it’s terminal — but not yet, so let me live my life while I can.
“As soon as I told A Place in the Sun about my diagnosis they paid me for the rest of the season but didn’t renew my contract. They knew I wanted to carry on.
“That hurt. That broke my heart. I feel hugely let down. I can’t even watch the show now.”
Jonnie has not stopped working throughout the months of gruelling treatment, filming for Escape to the Country as well as working on commercial projects.
He has an almost obsessive urge to provide for his family, selling his property portfolio so he could pay off the mortgage on a new home in Newcastle so Jess, 40, could be close to family.
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“I want to go knowing that Jess and the boys are looked after,” he said.
That’s why, he said, it hurt all the more when Freeform Productions, the company behind A Place in the Sun, stopped giving him work after his diagnosis.
It also led him to keep his cancer secret for two years, fearful he would lose more work.
He said: “Yes, I’m a family man and I need to put a roof over our heads and food on the table but work is something that’s really important to me. It also stops me thinking about cancer.
“Even though I look thinner and I’m without hair, Escape to the Country and A Place in the Sun Ltd, which runs the show’s exhibitions, have employed me and I’ve been so impressed by them. But I didn’t get that support from A Place in the Sun.
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“I told them I wanted to work. When I said I can get you doctor notes and assurances from my oncologist that I am fit to work, I was told, verbatim, ‘Oh, you really don’t want to go down that route, do you?’
“They said, ‘We don’t think we can get the insurance’, not ‘We can’t get the insurance’, but, ‘We don’t think…’
“That broke my heart and affected my mental health. Within two weeks someone else was on TV doing my job."
A statement from Channel 4 and production company Freeform said: “No stone was left unturned in trying to enable Jonnie to continue his international filming with us during Covid but the production company were unable to secure adequate insurance cover for him.
“We, of course, understand how frustrating this must be for him at this incredibly difficult time.”
Jonnie feels reassured that his effect on people has been positive, with old friends getting in touch, sharing anecdotes of his antics.
Along with the love of his family, it is a sign that he feels his life has been worthwhile.
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“I’ve had a lot of fun in my life and it turns out I’ve been quite fun to be around,” he said.
“It feels like I’ve had a chance to see my own wake and hear my own eulogy. In the meantime, I’m determined to just keep living.”
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