Richard E.Grant is still so in love with his late wife Joan Washington, who died of cancer at 74, that he emails her each night.
The Withnail And I star, 67, says: ‘I have no woolly spiritual delusion that she’s hearing this, or that I’m going to get a response, but it somehow keeps the connection going.
So I write to her – ‘Dear J, today would really have amused you…’ It makes it feel like that person is still there – it’s an ongoing conversation.’
Dialect coach Joan tragically passed away aged 74, in September 2021 eight months after she was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.
The couple met in 1986 and married later that year. They shared a daughter Olivia, 34.
Richard has been vocal in his grief since losing the love of his life and has admitted that he has lost friends as he battled heartbreak .
Richard E.Grant is still so in love with his late wife Joan Washington, who died of cancer at 74, that he emails her each night
The Withnail And I star, 67, says: ‘I have no woolly spiritual delusion that she’s hearing this, or that I’m going to get a response, but it somehow keeps the connection going
The pair had been together for 38 years at the time of her death.
‘Subsequent to her death, I have had people cross the road rather than talk,’ he said during a conversation at The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival last year.
‘Whether they think you’re going to fall apart and you’re an emotional wreck, I don’t know. But I will never speak to them again.’
He also recalled an occasion in which a couple who had lived near to his and Washington’s Provence holiday home ignored him when he waved to them.
He said: ‘As I walked towards them they both turned their heads. I thought, “F*** you.” I felt I was being punished because Joan had died.
‘They had never acknowledged it. Maybe they didn’t know how to deal with it.’
Richard announced the death of his wife in September 2021 and released a heartbreaking video of them dancing together.
He has since spoken about how he ‘can’t imagine falling in love again’ after the death of Joan.
The couple met in 1986 and married later that year and the pair share a daughter Olivia, 34 (pictured in 2012)
In an interview last year, Richard said he writes to his late wife of 35 years every day as the thought of her not being here is too much to bear.
The actor added while he has tried dating but ‘nobody else has even come near’ to Joan.
Of his grief, Richard told The Telegraph : ‘I’ve now accepted that I will never understand it trying to imagine not being here is beyond my capacity for thinking.
‘So, I write a letter to Joan every night about what’s going on, and I find that it feels like I have a physical, tangible, ongoing conversation with her that’s written down, I’ve found that really, really helpful.
‘Anticipating what she might think about this, or what is her opinion about that? Even the most mundane things.’
Richard said in the two years since Joan’s death, he has been set up on blind dates by his friends but isn’t looking to meet anyone.
‘I think that what was so extraordinary about her is that I felt like I was truly seen and understood by another human being in a way that nobody else has even come near,’ he said.
Richard has been vocal in his grief since losing the love of his life and has admitted that he has lost friends as he battled heartbreak
Richard said the idea he could find love again ‘is so hard to conceive of’ he can’t imagine it ever happening again.
The Saltburn actor added he’s ‘certainly not internet dating’.
Richard acknowledged while Christmas is certainly a difficult time for the family, it is imperative he keeps up the traditions in which he and Joan set.
The actor said he will get a tree every year and hang decorations they have made each year since their second daughter Olivia (affectionally known as Oilly) was born.
Their first daughter, Tiffany, was born premature and died shortly after birth.
