28 March 2024 , 09:00
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Paul O’Grady enjoyed a fun-filled and productive last day of his life, his husband has revealed.
Today marks 12 months since Paul suffered a sudden cardiac arrhythmia, aged 67. And in a wide-ranging Mirror interview with Tom Bryant - which you can read here - Andre Portasio spoke of how happy and cheeky his husband was.
“The day he died, we had the most ordinary day,” Andre begins.
“I’d got up early and gone down to the fields as I was working in the woodland. Paul had come back from touring, so was a little bit tired and woke up really late. Usually, he would stagger down from the bedroom with his hair on end and moaning it was the beginning of the day.
“He loved a good moan but he had a meeting with his producer, Malcolm Prince, about his radio show and he was looking very smart in a white shirt, and had a good aura. I’ll never forget saying to him how handsome he looked, and him joking back saying f*** off!”
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After the afternoon’s meeting, Paul would have usually walked their five dogs alone, but this time asked Andre along as he wanted to show him some new trees he had bought.
Andre adds: “He was on wonderful form and then we settled down in the living room and switched on the telly to catch up on Kent ITV News.
Paul O'Grady with his loving husband, Andre Portasio (Andre Portasio)“He always insisted on watching the presenter Sangeeta [Bhabra] – he loved her and would never allow me to put the BBC on. It was all about ITV. He left to get some tea, and I heard this loud bang. But because the house is big and old, I didn’t think of anything at first.”
Andre noticed two of the dogs going into the kitchen then returning, and thought Paul must have gone to the cottage in the grounds of the house which they were renovating.
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“I walked to the kitchen to start putting some food on, and I started taking things out of the fridge,” he says. “And all of a sudden, I could see him lying on the floor.” Andre remembers being frozen with shock. I just didn’t know what to think at first,” he recalls. “He had a cut on his forehead, and I thought he was probably just unconscious.
“I called the ambulance and they said the best chance to keep him alive was to do CPR.”
Andre tried desperately to save Paul’s life. “I don’t know how long it took for the ambulance to arrive but by the end I was exhausted,” he says.
When the crew arrived, they spent an hour trying to resuscitate him.
He adds: “At one point, they were like ‘yes, he’s breathing.’ I thought the nightmare was gone but it was very short-lived, and very shortly afterwards they pronounced him dead.”
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Andre said he takes solace in his determination to celebrate Paul’s legacy... starting with the treasure-trove of items above his head.
“There is an amazing history of items in our loft that he kept over the years that no one ever got to see,” he explains.
Among them are his husband’s famous Lily Savage dresses and wigs, as well as countless pieces of memorabilia.
“I used to say to him that the Lily items were a slice of history but he was always very modest and called them a lot of tat,” proud Andre laughs.
“I think by the end he was very tired of having to put on all the make-up and all the practical aspects of becoming Lily although he never fully retired her and she kept making comebacks.”
While Paul was alive, Andre managed to persuade him to donate the odd item to the V&A, but there are endless other pieces he is now setting aside.
“They don’t belong to me, they belong to the nation,” he says. “I feel the audience at large would absolutely love to see them again, and it’s weighing on me very heavily how I take his legacy forward.”