Jill Halfpenny on This Morning and inset with her late partner
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Jill Halfpenny on ‘awful’ death of her partner: ‘I was cracked open and raw but it set me free’

She worked through her grief for partner Matt and her dad at the same time

Jill Halfpenny spoke movingly about the death of her partner Matt Janes on This Morning today (June 20).

Matt died suddenly of a heart attack back in 2017. He was aged just 43. Sadly, the star’s father Colin died in a similar way back in 1979, when Jill was aged four.

The first-ever Strictly winner has now written a book to help others facing similar heartbreak. And it seems she has the support of a new man in her life, too, with Jill recently revealing she’s found love for the first time since Matt’s death.

Jill Halfpenny on This Morning today
Jill Halfpenny appeared on This Morning and discussed the loss of partner Matt with Ben and Cat (Credit: ITV)

Jill Halfpenny tells Ben and Cat of her grief for partner Matt

Speaking to This Morning hosts Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley, Jill explained that it was “awful” when Matt died and brought back feelings of grief for her dad that she hadn’t dealt with.

However, she shared that Matt’s death triggered her to confront her childhood grief while she was “cracked open and raw”.

She said: “I just thought, okay, this is awful but this is my choice now. I’m cracked open and raw. Let’s go and do all the work I hadn’t done with my dad and grieve them both together and see what I can learn from it. And, kind of… it set me free.

“Thankfully I am at a stage in my life now where I can feel hope and I can feel joy. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have dark days.”

‘We went into survival mode’

Speaking about the impact of her father’s death, Jill explained: “It was 1979, we weren’t sitting down with therapists. We went into survival mode and we became a big family of doers.

“We were busy and productive and got on with things. Externally we all looked really good but internally we were struggling because sometimes you just really need to talk about how you feel.

“When you’re little and you don’t have the words, you need the guidance.”

Jill Halfpenny smiling with her partner Matt
Matt, pictured the year before he died, with Jill (Credit: Splash News)

‘It was like dealing with a double loss’

Jill, who was four when her dad died, then went on to admit: “What was really difficult was grieving somebody who I didn’t really know a lot about. You have to allow yourself to sit in those uncomfortable feelings and be okay with not being okay for a while.

“My grief at losing Matt, my partner, was so brutal and so shocking. But then what happened was it brought out all of the grief from my dad as well. It was like dealing with a double loss – a loss I’d never actually dealt with.”

Read more: Jill Halfpenny announced in new Channel 5 drama with former Corrie star

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Nancy Brown
Associate Editor