Beloved TV personality and pop star Linda Nolan has died aged 65 after a long journey with secondary breast cancer.
The Daily Mirror Columnist has passed away today with her famous sisters at her side – just days after her last poignant piece for this newspaper. Her final hours were said to have been full of “love and comfort.”
In a statement released to the Mirror, agent Dermot McNamara, said: “It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Linda Nolan, the celebrated Irish pop legend, television personality, Guinness World Record holding West End star, Sunday Times bestselling author and Daily Mirror columnist. She passed at around 10:20am at Blackpool Victoria Hospital on the MCEW Ward. The family said the hospital couldn’t do enough, they were tireless.”
The statement continued: “She passed peacefully, with her loving siblings by her bedside, ensuring she was embraced with love and comfort during her final moments. Linda’s legacy extends beyond her incredible achievements in music and entertainment. She was a beacon of hope and resilience, sharing her journey to raise awareness and inspire others. Rest in peace, Linda. You will be deeply missed, but never forgotten.”
Tributes have poured in for the Irish singer on social media, with her sister, Loose Women star Coleen Nolan, reposting her agent’s statement with a heartbroken emoji. On the ITV show today, the panel paid an emotional tribute to Coleen’s loss with host Christine Lampard saying: “Some very sad news for you now. Linda Nolan, Coleen’s sister, who was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer in 2017 has died at the age of 65.”
The family have assured well-wishers they will be organising a public memorial for the much-loved star. The news of Linda’s death will come as a shock to her loyal fans who had followed her as she shared the frank and honest realities of her journey with cancer in her weekly Mirror column.
Just last week, Linda had told the Mirror she had been feeling brighter after being ill over Christmas with what she thought was a “bout of flu”, although at one point she was too poorly for hugs and food. But on Saturday, just two days later, she was taken to hospital suffering from breathing problems. Doctors diagnosed double pneumonia and because of her secondary breast cancer, which had spread to her brain, her condition sadly deteriorated.
Her sisters – Anne, 74, Denise, 72, Maureen, 69, and Coleen, 59 – were called to her bedside at 3.30am on Tuesday as doctors made the decision to place her in end-of-life care. They kept a vigil by her side in her final hours.
Her agent acknowledged her achievements as a singer, West End star, TV personality, charity campaigner, author and a founding member of The Nolans – who sold more than 30million records, performed for President Gerald Ford and toured with Fran Sinatra.
The statement read: “As a member of The Nolans, one of the most successful girl groups of all time, Linda achieved global success, touring the world and selling over 30 million records, with hits such as Gotta Pull Myself Together, Attention to Me and the iconic disco classic I’m In The Mood for Dancing. Her distinctive voice and magnetic stage presence brought joy to fans around the world, securing her place as an icon of British and Irish entertainment.
“Linda also dedicated her life to helping others, helping raise over £20million for numerous charities, including Breast Cancer Now, Breast Cancer Ireland and Samaritans, amongst countless others. Her selflessness and tireless commitment to making a difference in the lives of others will forever be a cornerstone of her legacy.”
Linda was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 and was given the all-clear in 2011. But in 2017 – four years after the death of her sister Bernie, aged 52 in 2013 – Linda was told the disease had returned after tumours were found in her hip bone and pelvis. Like Bernie, she was diagnosed with incurable secondary breast cancer but remained determined to make the most of the time she had left.
She decided to use her fame and humour to help others going through a similar ordeal, including her sister Anne, who was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in 2020 just days after Linda was told her cancer had spread to her liver. The sisters went through chemotherapy together but while Anne went into remission, Linda’s cancer could only ever be slowed down, not cured.
In 2023, Linda discovered it had moved to her brain, but she threw herself into charity work – and led the campaign for wonderdrug Enhertu to be made available to all secondary breast cancer sufferers on the NHS. She also appeared on Celebrity Antiques Road Trip with Status Quo’s Francis Rossi.
Despite struggling with her memory, and being unwell over Christmas with what she thought was the flu, Linda had been optimistic in her last column last Thursday. She told her readers: “The doctors say it’s been a bad case of flu. I’d walk a few steps and struggle to catch my breath. My legs were even more wobbly than usual and, although I try not to, I thought of how Bernie was at the end. You think, ‘Oh my God, is this it?’
“It was only on Monday I felt well enough to venture out. It feels like a whole new world out there. There’s nothing like the sensation of starting to feel better after an illness. You’ve forgotten what it feels like to feel normal (well, I say normal?).” In what will prove to be a poignant final line, she added: “I’m no fan of resolutions but here’s one: It’ll take more than flu to finish me off.”
Just before Christmas, Linda was having a period of ups and downs. She admitted she was scared Christmas 2024 would be her last – and decided to move out of her Blackpool home and back in with her sister Denise and her husband Tom. “I try to stay positive,” she told The Mirror in December. “I’ll use jokes and humour as a way to cope, but of course it’s scary. And I have my days where I’m terribly down.”
Linda bravely said her Christmas wish was to “keep breathing and see another one”. But she had zero self-pity. “We’ll eat, drink and sing carols. And I should point out, I won’t be cooking. I have cancer, that’s my excuse,” she said, with a wink.
She defiantly added: “I thought my 60th birthday would be my last, but I’m still here, five years later. It’s easy to sit back and get depressed about it, but I’m still going. My hope for 2025? To not die, obviously. I just want to be here with my family.”
In one of her candid Mirror columns, Linda spoke frankly about her fear of dying. Talking about her conversation with a nurse, Linda wrote: “She asked me straight if I’m afraid. And I replied that yes, I am afraid of dying. And sad, too. And she said I could call her anytime, that they’re there to talk about anything.”
But after a dream about sister Bernie, who died in 2013 from breast cancer aged 52, her fears dissipated. “When I was told I had brain cancer and that it was treatable but not curable, I was devastated. But that night I went to bed and dreamed of Bernie all night,” she said. “We were laughing together. I woke up, went downstairs and told my sister Maureen: ‘I’m not scared of dying any more. I’ve just dreamed about Bernie and she’s going to be there – that’s amazing’.”
Brave Linda even planned her own funeral so it would be “easier for people left behind”. In 2023, she told The Mirror: “I think it’s a one-way trip now”, and revealed she had decided on her funeral directors. She also decided she wanted Neil Sedaka’s Our Last Song Together to be played and laughed that she wanted a “pink, sparkly coffin”.
In August, Linda’s sister Coleen told the Mirror that Linda wanted everyone in black “weeping and wailing”. She joked: “Linda will probably have a list of people she doesn’t want at her funeral – there are a lot of people Linda doesn’t like!”
The famous Nolan siblings have been open about their family heartbreak over the years, with four of the six sisters having received a cancer diagnosis or had a cancer scare at some point in their lives. Anne was the first sister to fall ill, after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000.
She later got the all-clear, only to be diagnosed with breast cancer again in April 2020 – this time in the opposite breast. Just a few days later Linda was told her secondary breast cancer had spread to her liver, so sisters decided to undergo their chemotherapy together.
“I don’t want to die. I love my life so much. I love my daughters, my grandchildren, my friends, all my family. I want to live for as long as I possibly can,” Anne told The Sun at the time. She discovered she had cancer for a second time when she found a lump while showering. Thankfully, the star went into remission for the second time and revealed she was cancer-free in December of that year.
The second youngest Nolan sister, Bernie, first announced she had been diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2010. In October of the same year, Bernie said she was cancer-free following having a mastectomy, going through chemotherapy and taking Herceptin. She announced in February 2012 that she was no longer taking cancer treatment drugs.
However, by the end of October 2012, Bernie’s cancer had returned. Doctors told the singer that the disease returned to her left breast, brain, lungs, liver and bones. The late star passed at her home in Surrey in July of the following year. She was 52 years old at the time of her death. “Bernie passed away peacefully this morning with all of her family around her,” a statement read at the time.
Loose Women star Coleen was told she had skin cancer on her finger in 2023. Revealing the shocking moment she found out, Coleen said: “My first instinct, typical me, was to laugh hysterically because I just thought that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard anybody say. I’m sick of cancer. Also, my first instinct was, ‘I’m not telling anybody in my family’ because this… seems nothing compared to what my sisters have been through.”
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