TV presenter Simon Thomas' heartbreak as he loses 'wonderful' friend to cancer - nine years after his first wife Gemma died of the disease
TV presenter Simon Thomas has paid tribute to his ‘wonderful friend’ who has died of cancer six weeks after diagnosis.
The Soccer Saturday host took to his Instagram to share a lengthy post about the death of his friend Becca.
He wrote of his heartache at losing his long-time friend, saying he was “angry” that cancer had taken someone else he loves.
Thomas’ first wife Gemma died suddenly in 2017 at the age of 40, three weeks after she was diagnosed with myeloid leukaemia. The pair had been married for 12 years at the time.
Becca also passed quickly after diagnosis, with Simon writing that she had first battled cancer last year and had recovered, but it had returned in late November and proved fatal.
Simon’s full statement read: “Goodbye my friend - another life that had so many more miles to travel; so many more moments to savor; cut cruelly short by cancer.
“You didn’t deserve this. So few do who get cut down by this horrific disease. You had already stared cancer in the face last year and fought your way back. Finally it was behind you, finally you could look forward to the years ahead with your family only for it to return six weeks ago and wield the cruellest and quickest of blows.
“And to take you on your ninth wedding anniversary feels even more cruel. Cancer, as it continues to do to so many families, stole a wife, a mother, a daughter and a friend.
“It stole the years to come - the bedtime stories, future birthdays, family holidays, Christmases, time spent at your beautiful house. The moments to come that should have been.
“But above all it stole those many years Emilia should have had with her mum and the time her wonderful husband Andy should have had with Becca alongside him.
“But the one thing cancer will never steal is Becca. She was a wonderful friend and brilliant housemate in the SW London days. Loving, warm, fun, endlessly kind, and one of the best organisers I have ever met. Even in pain, even when life kept asking too much of her, she kept loving, kept giving, kept showing up.
“I am gutted to lose her as a friend; but most of all I am heartbroken for Andy and Emilia.
“And I’m angry. We keep being told we’re closer to a cure for cancer, that survival rates are getting better and yet all I see is this dreadful disease taking more and more of the people I love.
“In my darker moments I wonder whether there’s even a genuine desire to find a cure or is there just too much money to be made by too many to finally eradicate it?
“And as a Christian it leaves me wondering where is God when you reach those life and death moments in life? Why does he always seem so silent? I will never turn my back on my faith; but my days these moments forge the biggest of tests.
“I am grateful beyond words that Becca was my friend. Her love lives on in Andy, in little Emilia, and I know she’s now with her Heavenly Father, free from pain and struggle.” He ended with the hashtag #cancersucks.
Simon married his second wife Derrina Jebb in 2021. The pair have two children, son Theo and daughter Talitha. He also shares a son Ethan with his late wife Gemma.