Comedian and actor Jack Whitehall, who is hosting the 2026 BRIT Awards tonight (February 28), once opened up about the “medical emergency” his dad suffered that he blamed himself for.
Like Jack, his dad, author and television personality Michael Whitehall, is in the public eye. Meanwhile, his mum, Hilary Gish Whitehall, is also an actress like her son.
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Jack Whitehall reveals dad had a ‘medical emergency’
In 2024, Jack and his dad starred in a Netflix series, Jack Whitehall: Fatherhood with My Father, where they “embark on a globe-trotting trip to find answers to the big questions facing the comedian after becoming a dad”.
Appearing on a September 2024 episode of Jamie Laing’s Great Company podcast, Jack remembered an incident when he and his dad visited the infamous Chornobyl region in Ukraine.
“That was one of those moments where I did feel like I’d pushed him too far. He’d been travelling for hours and it was a really hot day and he was very dehydrated,” he admitted.
Before Jack knew it, the situation became more serious, and his 84-year-old dad became more anxious.
“He had a bit of a medical emergency at Chernobyl, in the forest, the woodlands of Chernobyl, and we were in a van and we had to pull over and he had a bit of an explosive diarrhoea situation,” he said.
“[It] culminated in me and Michael in the woods, and me having to hold him because you can’t lean on anything in Chernobyl, because everything is radioactive, and they keep telling you that when you enter, ‘don’t touch anything,'” Jack continued.
‘This has gone too far now’
While Jack signed up to be his travel companion, he soon became a carer in the situation.
Recalling the moment that became a turning point, Jack said he “had to hold his hands and cradle him in my arms as he [bleep]ed on the forest floor”.
It was then that Jack realised “this has gone too far now”.
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