As Jasmine Harman addresses her husband’s heart attack in her brand new series, the Mirror takes a look at the A Place In The Sun star’s family heartbreaks, including the devastating loss of her sister-in-law
A Place In The Sun star Jasmine Harman has opened up about her husband’s heart attack horror, and it’s sadly not the first family struggle she’s endured.
While filming a recent episode of Jasmine’s Renovations In The Sun, 46-year-old cameraman Jon Boast, whom Jasmine met on the set of A Place In The Sun, began suffering persistent chest pains while renovating their family home in Estepona, Spain.
In dramatic scenes that aired yesterday, Jasmine, who will this week celebrate her 50th birthday, told viewers: “So, we’re at the hospital now. Jon had a funny turn at home, and I had to call an ambulance, but he’s sleeping now, having a little rest. Hopefully it’s nothing serious, but we’re just waiting for some test results.”
Giving an update from his hospital bed, brave Jon said: “Just when we thought we were getting back to normal life, or as normal as life could be, mid-renovation, and I was getting back on my feet.
“This afternoon, when we were with one of the builders, I got sort of pains in my chest and tight chested, aching arms. We called an ambulance and now I’m in hospital, and the blood test results suggest that I’ve had a mild heart attack.”
Speaking out for the first time about the ordeal, Jasmine told The Mirror that Jon has recovered and is back working. She said: “I know this sounds strange, but even with the background of what could have happened and worrying he could have died, it makes you feel lucky he just had a mild heart attack and everything is fine. But the challenges life throws at you has made me take things in my stride a lot better than I used to.”
Here, the Mirror takes a look at some of the painful heartbreaks mum-of-two Jasmine and her family have had to deal with over the years…
READ MORE: Jasmine Harman breaks silence after husband’s heart attack horror
Tragic loss of sister-in-law
Back in 2016, Jon tragically lost his sister, Joanne ‘Jo’ White, who died suddenly after going into cardiac arrest. Jo was just 40 years old, and her death came as a terrible shock to loved ones. In the years since, Jon has thrown himself into supporting CRY, a charity which helps to screen for cardiac risk among young people.
A video previously shared via Jasmine’s Instagram sees a tearful Jon announce: “I support CRY in memory of my amazing sister, Joanne White. [She] passed away suddenly in the night in 2016, from sudden cardiac death.
“Jo was an amazing mother, daughter, auntie, wife and sister. The reason I support CRY is they were there for her family when she was taken so suddenly, offering us guidance and immediate screening.”
Asserting that Jo would have wanted her story to be used to raise awareness, Jon continued: “CRY continue to support us with yearly heart screenings of myself and some of Jo’s family. […] Any funds raised will continue to support the amazing work CRY do in their research, the screening of young people for potential heart problems and raising awareness of young, unexplained cardiac deaths.”
In her new series, Jasmine explained that she and Jon had decided to move to Spain partly because of the shock of losing Jo. She said: “She was fit, well and very healthy. It was a very big shock.”
Baby agony
Jasmine and Jon share two children together, Joy and Albion, but their road to a happy family life was far from easy. Opening up in an interview with Fabulous magazine, Jasmine, whose two children were both welcomed via IVF, spoke candidly about the heartache she and Jon faced when trying to expand their family.
Back in 2017, the couple had tried for baby number three, only for their hopes to be dashed when the embryo didn’t implant. Jasmine shared: “Sadly, when we tried for a third baby in 2017, our embryo didn’t implant. This came so soon after losing Jon’s sister, Jo, who died suddenly at 40 from an unexplained heart problem.”
She continued: “We’d hoped that welcoming a new baby might have lifted the family and brought fresh joy after such a painful time, but instead we were reminded how fragile and precious life can be.”
Mum’s extreme condition
Although Jasmine is well used to looking around beautiful homes, she faced a very different sort of challenge in 2011, having set about helping her extreme hoarder mother clear away 30 years’ worth of clutter. This emotional journey was highlighted in the BBC doc My Hoarder Mum & Me, which resonated with many viewers.
In a candid 2023 episode of This Morning, the property guru gave a heartfelt joint interview with mum Vasoulla, admitting that she previously found her condition “embarrassing”, and feared it would affect the career she’d worked so hard for.
Speaking with Dermot O’Leary and Allison Hammond, Jasmine shared: “In fact, when I started working in television, it was my biggest fear that someone would find out about the way I’d grown up and the way that we lived at the time.”
However, gaining a deeper understanding of her mother’s hoarding and where it stems from has helped her prioritise “having a loving relationship” with Vasoulla, putting aside the fights they once had.
Recognised as a mental health disorder as of 2013, the World Health Organisation (WHO) defines hoarding as “an accumulation of possessions due to excessive acquisition of, or difficulty discarding possessions, regardless of their actual value”.
During the same interview, Vasoulla explained that the 1958 murder of her father, Evangelos, who was just 32 when he died, triggered her anxiety-based disorder. After the killing, Vasoulla and her mother Maria fled their home country of Cyprus for England, and it’s then that the hoarding started.
According to Vasoulla: “We moved from Cyprus when I was about three, so I left my baby things back home and started collecting trinkets in bombed-out houses that were still about in the early Sixties, after the war – trinkets that I treasured.
“Then we moved back to Cyprus for a couple of years, and those things all got lost. Then we moved back to England and all my new ties got lost – so I just had lots of upheaval, lots of loss.”
She continued: “It’s more the loss, like a bereavement. Losing your father is a big thing, moving country …you lose everything, and you get a new place to live. The trauma of loss [is] something that a lot of people have as the onset of their hoarding behaviour.”
Jasmine’s Renovation In The Sun is now available to watch on Channel 4.
Do you have a story to share? Email me at julia.banim@reachplc.com
READ MORE: ‘Lush launches skin-friendly make-up and this product exceeded all my expectations’
Source: Mirror
Leave a Reply