Eamonn Holmes describes chronic back pain as he admits 'nothing getting better'
Just getting from A to B on his own two feet has become a daily struggle for Eamonn Holmes. Now reliant on walking aids after a series of back problems, surgery and a fall, the TV presenter admits things are tough.
“I get resentful that I’m not the way I used to be but I just get on with it,” he says. “I work hard at trying to walk. It’s very hard to get through a normal day but I have help from people around me.” Chief among those people is wife Ruth Langsford, whose love and care he has nothing but praise for.
Eamonn said: “Ruth’s not a particularly tolerant person but my god I’m so indebted to her. She’s from an army family and she just gets on with it, she’s a tour de force.” Eamonn, 63, began experiencing back pain two years ago and went on to suffer a dislocated pelvis, three slipped discs and a trapped sciatic nerve.
The presenter underwent spinal surgery a year ago and while recovering at home in Surrey had a setback when he fell down the stairs. He suffers from chronic pain and has tried all sorts of treatments including epidural injections, physiotherapy and ice-cold showers. “The latest one I’m trying is this back stretching,” he says.
Eamonn using crutches at 2023 TRIC Awards (Getty Images)
Eamonn working on his return to full health (Eamonn Holmes Instagram)“I pay privately because my insurance only covers so much. I go to the paraplegic gym, I try my best but nothing much is getting better and no one has a prognosis as to whether it will get better.” The star isn’t letting his health battle hold him back. He recently officiated at his pal, Coronation Street star Charlie Lawson’s wedding to Debbie Stanley, saying he was touched to be asked, and has live “audience with” shows lined up later this year.
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But the broadcaster’s struggles have made him realise how many people experience similar pain. “There’s a huge appetite in people wanting to know how you’re doing,” he said. “So many people have got back problems and they want somebody to share that with. It strikes me that there’s a pain epidemic and a back pain epidemic.
"There are so many things if I was prime minister that I would change and one is education about maintaining our backs. There was nothing wrong with my back until two years ago. Then your life’s turned upside-down. You get outraged on behalf of people who are permanently disabled and the lack of facilities for them. I can’t do things on my own, I need help and that’s a constantly humiliating thing. You’re judged on everything, people have an insight into your life.”
Eamonn has been married to his presenter wife Ruth for 13 years, with their son Jack turning 21 this year. The couple were a regular fixture on ITV’s This Morning until they were let go in 2020. Ruth now presents Loose Women on the same channel and Eamonn hosts the GB News breakfast show.
Eamonn undergoes spine-stretching procedure (Instagram/eamonnholmes)He says of his wife, also 63: “It’s very hard to describe Ruth. I could quite happily take the adulation with my job but she literally cannot wait to get home, get her make-up off and start clearing out drawers and unloading the dishwasher. I can’t sing her praises enough, she’s not what you expect in showbiz.”
Ruth and Eamonn are pals with Loose Women co-star Coleen Nolan. Eamonn has been a guest on her podcast Let’s Start Talking, which opens up conversations around death and grief. Eamonn, a father of four, grew up in Belfast and says talking about death and seeing open coffins laid out was part of the culture.
He led George Best’s funeral ceremony in the city in 2015, saying it was one of his “proudest, most important duties”. The presenter, one of five brothers, lost his beloved mum Josephine, 94, in November and was unable to attend her Belfast funeral due to his health. "I paid a tribute to my mum before the mass started,” he says.
“I thanked everybody for being there, I was quite funny about her because she was a real matriarch, she was nobody’s fool and she was surrounded by men, five sons, we all paid respect. I’m happy that she’s in a better place, I smile even as I’m saying it. I haven’t wept for her, I just thank God because it was a relief from her pain.
Eamonn with his beloved mum Josephine, who passed away last year (eamonnholmes/Instagram)“She believes she’s with Daddy.” Eamonn’s father Leonard died of a heart attack at 63 and he thinks of him every day. “I do believe if you think of someone every day they’re never gone,” he said. “I do it naturally with both my mum and my dad, I go: ‘Well I know what you’d say, Mum’.
“My dad died in 1991, I was going out the door and this man came up to me and he handed me £30. He said: ‘I just want to tell you something, when I was in my early 20s my wife had a baby and the child died and we hadn’t got any money to bury the child. Your dad gave me £30, he said he didn’t want it back and we buried our child. ‘I just want you to know what a good man he was’.”
In conversation with Coleen, Eamonn touches on his own mortality. “I don’t want to live longer if I’m not living better,” he said. “Life is for living and you’ve got to be healthy to enjoy it. My dad died when he was 63 and he hadn’t experienced any illness or sickness in his life.
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“If you died when you’re 60, 70, 80, 90 whatever that’s great but if you’re really suffering...” And the presenter has planned out his own funeral. He joked to Coleen he would like a lot of “mysterious, glamorous women on their own” turning up. He wants Elvis Presley ’s version of Bridge Over Troubled Water played, he said, adding: “Funerals are an important part of life. You would like somebody to stand up and say: ‘He was a good guy’.”
* Eamonn Holmes on Let’s Start Talking, with Co-op Funeralcare and hosted by Coleen Nolan is available to download from iTunes, Spotify or Google Play. You can listen to it here.
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