Six months after the death of her husband, The Wanted star Tom Parker, Kelsey Parker joined the Loose Women today.
Tom was diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma in September 2020 after suffering a seizure. He passed away from the disease in March 2022.
Kelsey revealed that she feels the loss more at “certain times of the day”.
“Evenings are so tough – the kids go to bed and it’s just me and that’s the time you speak to your partner – you gossip, you talk and I don’t have that anymore.”
Asked how her children are dealing with the loss of their father, she said:
“Bodhi is just two. With Aurelia, it’s been six months, it’s very matter of fact her dad has died and now she’ll just pick things up [at home] and be like, ‘Oh that was my Dad’s.’ So she does understand.”
“If she sees him… obviously there’s so many photos around the house, she’ll be like, ‘Oh that’s mummy and daddy when they got married.’ We really talk about him in the house… It’s so important to keep him alive for them.”
Ruth Langsford asked Kelsey how she’s managing the ‘firsts’ – the first birthday, Father’s Day, etc and Kelsey revealed:
“I’ve tried to make everything a celebration – his birthday, we did a charity walk for him. We went to Cornwall every single year and this is the first year we went to Cornwall on holiday without him and that was really tough, but I wanted to go because he’d want me to go.”
“It is tough, no one can tell you how you’re going to feel and I don’t think there is a right way of how you feel. For me, I live each day. ‘How do I feel today? This is what I’m going to do today.
“I have a village of people – I’m so lucky that they’re there for me… I couldn’t do it without them.”
On believing she sees signs from Tom, Kelsey said:
“There’s always a sign. We went to Soho Farmhouse for my friend’s hen.. we were all gossiping and on the balcony was a white feather and I was like, ‘Course he’s here picking up all the gossip’ and I kept saying to Tom out loud, ‘Please make it sunny on Saturday‘ and the sun was shining, but it was forecast rain all day.”
Kelsey also spoke about doing a 100km trek across the Sahara desert with Giovanna Fletcher to raise money for CoppaFeel!
“I want a challenge – I want to keep challenging myself. It’s for CoppaFeel!, everyone’s going to be talking about cancer, that’s what I’m going to struggle with – the emotional level of the trek.”
Loose Women airs weekdays at 12.30pm on ITV/STV/UTV
