Loose Women presenter Ruth Langsford opened up about the death of her sister and revealed how work helped her get through it.
Ruth, 63, said that without her TV job, she would have ended up crying all day after Julia took her own life in 2019. She had suffered from depression.
Loose Women star Ruth Langsford on grief for her sister Julia
Ruth told her Loose Women co-star Kaye Adams on her How to be 60 podcast: “The hardest year of my life was when my sister died. I can’t even tell you what year it is, because I’ve blocked it from my memory really.
“I needed a focus, which was – get up and I would cry in the shower, have a big old bawl – and then I could almost cut it off and go: ‘Right, come on, time for work, dry your hair, go to work.'”
She added: “I needed that because I could lie and cry all day about my sister. I needed that focus and structure back in my life,” she said.
Eamonn’s love and support
Ruth, who shares 21-year-old son Jack with husband Eamonn Holmes, also praised her family for supporting her following her sister’s tragic death.
“Eamonn was amazing during that time and Jack and then work,” she said.
However, Ruth admitted there are frequent sad reminders that her sister is no longer here. “You reach to get a card – at Christmas, I always used to get my sister a funny card – and then it jolts you, where you think, oh, I don’t need to get her a card any more. Everybody has their pain. We all end up losing people we love. But it’s important we don’t lock it all away in a box.”
View this post on Instagram
Ruth’s health fears
The star also admitted on the podcast that she’s worried about what the future holds for herself.
Her father Dennis died in 2012 after being diagnosed with dementia, but Ruth revealed she would refuse a test to see if she was likely to develop the condition herself.
She explained: “My father had Alzheimer’s. My mum is now 91 and living in assisted living. It always worries me, but I try not to let it consume me. Whenever they say that you can do a test to see if you would be prone to getting Alzheimer’s, I don’t really want to do it, because there’s no cure at the moment.
“If I could do that test and they said: ‘Right, now you know, this is what you do to stop you getting it. You have to take this tablet, you have to do these exercises, you have to eat this or don’t eat that.’ But there’s nobody who can tell you that, so I almost don’t want to know,” she concluded.
Read more: Inside Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes’ stunning Surrey family home
So what do you think of this story? Leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix and let us know what you think of this story.