Jeremy Vine has responded to the news that the death of Ann Widdecombe has become a murder investigation. A 26-year-old man was arrested this afternoon after the former minister and Strictly Come Dancing contestant was found dead on Thursday (9 July).
Vine and Widdecombe appeared on his eponymous current affairs discussion programme, which airs on 5, and he said that the latest developments were "almost impossible take in".
Posting to his Instagram Story, he wrote: "I woke this morning to the devastating news that Ann Widdecombe had died. She has been a huge part of my professional life, especially since I started on Channel 5, where she has been a guest on my show more than 100 times."
"The news that Ann died in an act of violence is almost impossible to take in," he continued, before praising Widdecombe for never "complaining about her obvious frailty as she got older".
"I can't say any more about an active police case, but I hope with all my heart that her family will be able to remember their vivid Ann, their Ann whose eyes twinkled with fun and kindness, and not the Ann whose life has been stolen like this," he concluded.
Prior to Devon and Cornwall Police's announcement that Widdecombe's death was being treated as suspicious, This Morning contributor Ashley James, who appeared alongside her on Celebrity Big Brother, wrote on her own Instagram Story.
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"[Ann] Widdecombe and I couldn't have been more different politically. We clashed a lot in the Celebrity Big Brother house, and there are many of her views I fundamentally disagreed with, particularly on LGBTQ+ rights," she wrote.
"I'm very aware that many of her beliefs and where she gave her political vote were deeply harmful to communities and caused real hurt. Her views were deplorable," she added.
"But she also had a profound impact on me in an unexpected way. After one particularly explosive row, she called me 'a little bit of a bone picker' and told me I needed to stop being so sensitive."
"At the time, I didn't want to hear it. But she encouraged me to care less about pleasing everyone and to have more conviction in my own beliefs," continued James, who said she had "fond memories" of working with Widdecombe.
"Those moments reminded me that people are often more complicated than the opinions they're known for... [We] lost touch as our lives and our beliefs moved further apart," she shared, before concluding: "Goodnight, House Gran."
Anton Du Beke, Widdecombe's professional partner on Strictly, wrote on Instagram: "She became a real friend. She was fun, she was upbeat, she was positive, she was supportive, she was game - she wanted to enter into the spirit of the whole thing and we had an incredible time together."
Shaun is an Evening News Editor at Digital Spy, with over a decade of experience reporting on all things pop culture. He has written for outlets including Metro, Attitude, Huffington Post, The Mirror, Yahoo!, Pink News and Express Online, specialising in TV, movies, soaps, music and LGBTQ+ issues. He is also a BAFTA Rocliffe-winning scriptwriter, having written episodes of the soap Hollyoaks, the official Steps musical Here & Now and multiple Offie Award-nominated plays. He studied English Literature and Drama at the University of East Anglia, and will happily talk at length about Desperate Housewives to anyone who'll listen.
