Dame Esther Rantzen’s daughter Rebecca Wilcox, 45, joined Nana Akua on GB News, where she issued a heartbreaking update about her mother’s health. Following a 2023 diagnosis, the TV icon, 85, is currently terminally ill with lung cancer. At the time, Esther revealed that the cancer had spread, but she had started on a new life-preserving drug, which allowed her to live longer than expected. However, in March, Rebecca revealed that the drug was no longer working and that her mother had been trying to get a different treatment. 

During this time, Dame Esther became a vocal advocate for assisted dying in the UK and has urged the House of Lords to back the assisted dying bill. The TV star also shared that she is “making arrangements” to travel to Dignitas, which is an organisation providing physician-assisted suicide to members with terminal illness based in Switzerland. However, in the tragic update, Rebecca shared that a potential police investigation means her mother may have to travel alone. 

During her conversation with Nana, the Morning Live star admitted that Esther is “making preparations, should the next scan show that the cancer is spreading at a rate that will make things difficult if she wants to keep living in the UK.”

Defending her mother’s decision for assisted death, Rebecca shared: “What she’s facing now is a possible horrible, painful death, hugely undignified if she stays with us in the UK. Or she pays £15,000, and that is a huge privilege to be able to afford that, to go ahead of her time, months before she should.” 

In the heartbreaking update, Esther’s daughter revealed: “She will not go with us, she will not let her kids come with her. My brother’s a doctor, my sister’s very unwell and in a wheelchair, and I’m a busy working mum. 

“They don’t let you do these things if you come back to the UK and then are accused of murdering your mum, which is what could happen. We would very likely face prosecution for assisting her death.”

Rebecca continued: “If she wants the death that she deserves, the death that everyone deserves, that wonderful, fairytale death, when you say ‘she died peacefully in her bed surrounded by her loved ones.’

“The only way she can guarantee that she gets that, is if she pays a huge amount of money and flies alone to a place that she’s never been before. 

During an appearance on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Friday (September 12), Dame Esther said: “I'm making arrangements because it's the only way I can have an assisted death, to go by myself to Zurich, to Dignitas. 

“I just wish that I was allowed to say goodbye to my family and for them to see that I have a good death,” she added, urging the House of Lords to move forward with the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.