Chris Rea, 74, a driving home for Christmas rocker, passed away on Monday after receiving the devastating news that he had pancreatic cancer at the age of 33.
Chris Rea, the rock star who sadly died after many years of poor health on Monday, had a defiant response to the heartbreaking news aged 33 that he had pancreatic cancer.
The Driving Home for Christmas singer said he ‘wasn’t afraid of dying’ as he faced various serious health battles that plagued him for the best part of his successful singing career.
Rea, whose festive classic has consistently topped the UK singles chart every year since 2007, passed away on Monday at the age of 74 after a brief illness.
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And the star shared a now haunting last social media post just hours before his death, featuring a car on a snow-filled motorway, with a road sign which read: ‘Driving home for Christmas with a thousand memories’.
Posted on Sunday, the Middlesborough native – whose sad death was announced by his wife Joan, who was his childhood sweetheart, added the caption, ‘Top to toe in tailbacks If it’s a white Christmas, let’s hope the journey’s a smooth one.’
following his 33-year diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Although the singer suffered from diabetes and kidney issues, he eventually recovered fully, having removed a portion of his pancreas, his gall bladder, and a portion of his liver.
In 2016, he had a stroke – but would go onto release further music, albums Road Songs For Lovers in 2017 and One Fine Day in 2019. But his frailty was clear to see after he seemed to collapse onstage during a 2017 gig in Oxford and was rushed to hospital.
But the star previously confessed that rather than let his various health issues drag him down, he used them to dig deep into his first musical love – the blues.
He acknowledged in an interview that “the end definitely seemed to come, but what made me through was the idea of leaving a record on which my two teenage daughters could sing: “That’s what Papa did — not the pop stuff, but the blues music.” He was concerned about that. ‘
However, he once said, and the subsequent operations he’d had to go through since 1994, were a “living nightmare.”
In ten years, he said, “I’ve had nine significant operations.” The internal tissues of the body are frequently associated with retroperitoneal fibrosis, which is a form of internal fibrosis.
No one was aware of its existence until 20 years ago, which is completely unpredictable. I then have a stroke, which affects the colon, pancreas, gall bladder, liver, and other parts of the body.
A statement released on Monday from his heartbroken wife Julia and the couple’s daughters, Josie and Julia, read: ‘It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of our beloved Chris. He passed away peacefully in hospital earlier today following a short illness, surrounded by his family.’
Source: Mirror
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