Singer Will Young appears on Who Do You Think You Are? tonight (June 3), as he delves into his family history. His more recent family history, however, saw Will endure heartache, after his twin brother Rupert took his own life.
The tragedy happened in 2020, when Rupert and Will were 41. The singer – who won Pop Idol in 2002 – has discussed the death of his brother previously.
In May 2022, he took part in a Channel 4 documentary Will Young: Losing My Twin Rupert. And it was a show that moved viewers to tears.
Losing My Twin Rupert – Will Young on death of his brother
The powerful Channel 4 film aired in May 2022. It explored the grief and pain of losing a loved one to addiction. And many of those watching at home shared how they had experienced similar family sadness.
Will’s twin brother Rupert took his own life in 2020 aged 41. Singer Will explained Rupert’s 20-year struggle with addictions to painkillers and alcohol had not previously been his story to share. But he also noted how the anxiety and depression Rupert felt was there long before dependence consumed him.
Towards the start of the documentary, Will asserted his still is, rather than ‘was’, a twin. He explained with wry smiles how Rupert had revelled in his brother’s pop success and, even though they were very different, they were always best friends.
But the manner in which Will had to care for his brother in his final years was also introduced early in the documentary. Will went on to recall how Rupert, following a period of sobriety, turned to alcohol after the end of a relationship. He also moved in with Will.
Will said: “I can’t remember why they broke up but I do think then he went back into drinking. From the time he started to live with me from 2016, he would drink about 40 beers a day. I was his carer. Cleaning up the [blank], cleaning up the sick, sometimes I had to wipe his [blank]. It was really quite bad.
“My day would start. Either he was sick or he would have peed on the sofa, so I’d have to clear that up, then go get more beers and codeine because he was addicted to painkillers,” he said.
‘On the streets’
Will also spoke about how Rupert would sometimes pass out on the streets in the last months of his life. Furthermore, he indicated his brother’s decline also saw him ask others for money.
“Towards the end, he was knocking on neighbours’ doors in the morning asking for money,” Will said.
“He was passed out outside a newsagent. He had become a person that was on the street. I don’t judge those people actually. I feel great empathy for them because that is Rupert, that’s what he became.”
‘There was nothing more that I could do’
Will also opened up about the agony of knowing Rupert may not survive on his own after he was kicked out of the singer’s home. Will threw him out of his home a week before he died and reported him as a trespasser at his London home.
“I had to be okay with that,” Will said. “With everything that I had done to try and help him… I knew there was nothing more that I could do. I hadn’t got to that stage before but I reached that stage.
“At the end he would be drinking for 24 hours a day. You’ve got this monster who’s not moving. So, the only thing was to throw him out but also to be aware he might end up killing himself. I was okay with everything I’d done to try to help him.”
Will continued by recounting how the terrible news of Rupert’s passing was delivered to him.
He said: “It was Sunday and I answered the door and there were policemen standing there. “I said: ‘He’s killed himself hasn’t he?’ That was the first thing I said. They said: ‘Can we come in?’ and I said: ‘Just tell me’, and one of them said: ‘Yeah he has killed himself.'”
Will admitted: “That brought a whole load of grief, that I couldn’t save him.”
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‘He drank all day’
Will also pondered whether the death of Rupert’s beloved pet dog Lola had any influence in his death. He noted how Rupert’s drinking escalated following Lola’s passing, just weeks before his own.
“It was like her and Rupert were one,” Will said. “Rupert always joked that when Lola died he would go on the biggest bender ever but when she died it was really dreadful. He never explicitly said ‘I will leave this Earth when Lola leaves this Earth’. But Lola died end of May 2020 and he died in July 2020.”
Inquest
An inquest into Rupert’s death revealed that he had been living with his brother on and off for around three years. It also revealed that had no other friends to speak of. He had been admitted to hospital four times in the week leading up to his death.
A week after Will asked him to leave his house, Rupert was found dead after falling from Westminster Bridge. Will said: “I just feel very grateful that I got 42 years with him. I did everything I could to not let him die.”
Read more: Inside Will Young’s ‘feud’ with ‘bully’ Simon Cowell – from instant ‘dislike’ to Strictly jibe
Who Do You Think You Are? is on BBC One tonight (June 3) at 9pm.
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