Have I Got News For You panelist Paul Merton has admitted he turned to comedy to cope with his grief in the aftermath of his second wife's death from aggressive breast cancer. The 68-year-old BBC star began a relationship with Sarah Parkinson following his divorce from Men Behaving Badly stalwart Caroline Quentin in 1998. Sadly Sarah was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer in 2002 at the age of 39. She had discovered two small lumps on her breast shortly after seeking IVF treatment in order for the couple to start a family.
Although they had unofficially married in a service in the Maldives in 2000 they only underwent an official ceremony in June 2003. But their union was to be short lived as she died in his arms in a hospice just three months later, a mere 19 months after her diagnosis. Paul subsequently admitted that on the Sunday after her death he went to the Comedy Store in London so he could be comforted by the sound of laughter.
"I went down to the Comedy Store shortly after she died, not to do the shows, I thought that would be misunderstood, but I did go down on the Sunday and just hung around.
"It wouldn’t have been right for me to go on stage, although some people do," he said.
Just weeks later he was back on set recording a new series of Have I Got News For You for the BBC. He explained why he returned to work so soon after suffering such a loss to The Times in 2010.
"If I’d had to sit at home and watch somebody else doing it, that would have been depressing. I think it was about three weeks after. If it had been three days after, or a week after, it wouldn’t have been right at all. But three weeks?"
Despite throwing himself back into things he admitted that period of his life "was awful".
"I spent a lot of time with the Comedy Store Players after Sarah died and they were a support group.
"It is wonderful to be with a group of people in a room with 300 people laughing in it," he told the publication.
Paul has since found love again is blissfully married to fellow comedian Suki Webster, who became his third wife when they tied the knot in 2009.
