Rylan Clark was forced to pull out of his BBC Radio 2 show after his mum Linda was rushed to hospital with a mystery illness. The TV presenter informed fans that he would be absent from his usual Saturday afternoon show, explaining that Linda had been taken to the emergency ward.

Taking to Instagram on Friday (July 18), he told fans: "Mummy Linda isn't well sadly so I won't be hosting the show tomorrow. Thank you to the emergency team at Princess Alexandra Hospital. Especially Tanya who really looked after my mum. Will keep you updated as she's on the mend. She's a trooper."

The BBC has since revealed that Richie Anderson will cover Rylan on Saturday, with the stand-in host set to be joined by singer Diana Vickers. Richie confirmed that he is stepping in for the latest episode in a video.

He said: "I need your help. So tomorrow I'm sitting in for Rylan on Radio 2 and I'm gonna be joined in the studio by the icon Diana Vickers. She's got a new podcast out, relationship agony aunt, so we wanna use her advice skills as we do 'Dianna Dilemmas'. So we want your fun household, family, relationship dilemmas."

The last time Linda was in hospital was back in 2022 after she suffered a nasty fall while on holiday in Marbella. At the time, Rylan told fans: "So unfortunately I took my mum away on her first holday in a good few years and safly she's had quite a bad fall, resulting in her having to have surgery out here.

"She's not in the best health with her other conditions and this has made it more complicated." But it wasn't long before Linda was back to her old self again, with the former X Factor star telling The Sun months later: "My mum is doing really, really well... she's really, really great. She's stumbling about Lakeside, so she's very much back to normal."

The news of Linda's hospitalisation comes days after Rylan revealed that he had "finally" got his mother to have her own Instagram account.

He wrote on Instagram last week: "So we've finally done it. Linda is now on Instagram. Bear with as she gets used to it but give her a follow if you want. Can't believe this is happening."

Days later, Linda shared her first update on the social media platform. Sharing a snap of herself and Rylan alongside the Celebrity Gogglebox crew, she wrote: "Thank you for 100k followers! Still don't really know what it means but Ross is helping me. This is our lovely Gogglebox crew. Luv yas."