Last night’s Late Late Show was all about raising money for The Irish Cancer Society, as this is the second year in a row they have been unable to run their annual Daffodil Day fundraiser.
As well as lots of entertainment on the night, including Jedward shaving off their iconic quiffs, they also had people on speaking about their own experiences with the disease.
Westlife’s Shane Filan opened up to Tubridy about losing both of his parents to cancer within 10 months of each other.
He shared that his mother, Mae died in December of 2019 before the pandemic began. Then, in October of last year he sadly also lost his Dad, Peter.
“My dad had pancreatic cancer. It was so surreal at the time because my mum was sick. You kind of wait your whole life wondering, ‘What’s going to happen to my parents’.”
“You think they’re superheroes. My mum and dad got to live a very long and happy life.”
The Sligo native also spoke to Tubridy about his parents relationship with each other, and that it was something very special; “It was textbook stuff. 55 years they were together and I never heard them argue once in my whole life.”
“But my dad adored my mother, absolutely adored the ground she walked on… They were a proper love story.”
One thing thing the star did reveal was that he was happy his parents were both around for Westlife’s reunion tour in 2019.
“It was lovely, my mum and dad got to see the Westlife reunion, which was very important to me, and got to be at Croke Park for the final concerts, they were there together.”
“It was probably the most special moment in my life for my parents to be there to see that, knowing that my mum was sick… she was quite ill at the time.”
“Then three or four days after that, we found out my dad had pancreatic cancer…just like that. That hit me like a steam train. Myself and my dad were very close, we were really, really close.”
The 41-year-old continued; “I could talk to him about anything. The first person I would call after The Late Late Show would be my dad… he was like my best friend, I could talk to him about anything.”
“When I think of my dad I have so many great memories of him growing up. But as I got older, we got very close. He was just an amazing man,” he added.
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Over the past twelve months the pandemic has made everything so difficult for people including the grieving process which Shane briefly touched on; “It’s been a very difficult year. Listen the last year has been horrendous for everybody obviously.”
“It’s been the worst year in probably humanity with Covid. But to lose both your parents any year it’d be horrendous. It’s been difficult but I have three brothers and three sisters and we’re very close and we’re very much in contact probably more now than we’ve ever been which is lovely.”
“We kind of keep ourselves going which is nice to have.”
You can still donate to Daffodil Day here.
