Scarlette Douglas was left "devastated" to hear her fellow 'A Place in the Sun' presenter Jonnie Irwin has terminal cancer.
Scarlette Douglas 'devastated' to hear of Jonnie Irwin's terminal cancer
The 35-year-old TV presenter - who hosted the Channel 4 show from 2015 until this year - knew 49-year-old Jonnie, who presented the programme from 2004 to 2021, had cancer but she was unaware it was terminal until he revealed the news last week.
Scarlette was on 'I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!' at the time, and only found out about Jonnie's devastating diagnosis when she became the second contestant voted out of the jungle earlier this week.
She said: "I had heard but I didn't realise it was terminal, which makes it sound imminent.
"On 'A Place In The Sun' we're always in different locations and we never really get to see each other.
"Sometimes our paths might cross but I think I probably only met Jonnie in person maybe three times, a handful of times, but it was always just brilliant."
Scarlette watched Jonnie closely on the show for research purposes before she had her screen test for the programme.
She added to the Daily Mirror newspaper: "I remember when I was doing my screen test for it, I'd watch a lot of his shows because he was confident with the house hunters. He was just on it. He knew everything, you know, you never question Jonnie. Jonnie was just so knowledgeable.
"Any questions the house hunters had, he knew the answer to and I remember taking a lot of inspiration from him when I first did the screen test, and even still doing the shows, still watching his episodes and being like 'Jonnie's done it like that'. And I love how he's done that. So I want to add a bit of that into how I present stuff.
"So I knew that he wasn't well, but I didn't know this. I've come out and been told there was something in the papers that he is not well. I didn't know the true extent of it."
Father-of-three Jonnie - who has sons Rex, three, and two-year-old twins Rafa and Cormac with his wife Jess, 40 - explained last week how he was told he had six months to live two years ago.
He said: "Within a week of flying back from filming, I was being given six months to live.
"I had to go home and tell my wife, who was looking after our babies, that she was on her own pretty much. That was devastating. All I could do was apologise to her. I felt so responsible."
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