Mike Tindall is grieving the loss of his father, Phil, who has died aged 80 after living with Parkinson’s disease for more than two decades.
The former England rugby captain shared the news on the September 23 episode of his podcast, The Good, The Bad & The Rugby. “Unfortunately, my dad passed away last week,” he told listeners.
Mike also took the chance to thank Otley Rugby Club in West Yorkshire, where Phil was once captain. The current players held a minute’s silence for him before their weekend match, with Mike revealing a video of the moment was sent to him, and he was touched to see it.
The news comes just four months after Mike gave a sobering update on his dad’s health. In May, he said Phil was “not doing great” and described Parkinson’s as “brutal”.
Phil was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2003, and the condition became a cause close to Mike’s heart. He has been a patron of Cure Parkinson’s since 2018, raising awareness and funds for research, including through his annual Celebrity Golf Classic.
Mike has spoken openly about how far his dad’s health had slipped by the time he and Zara married in 2011. Phil’s spine and discs were affected, and he needed a wheelchair for part of the wedding day, though he could walk some of it.
Speaking to the BBC in 2021, Mike admitted he wished he’s understood earlier how the disease could progress. “I didn’t really understand the process of how it deteriorated and how it could end up at that point and that’s […] one of the things I regret,” he said.
“I would say he’s had a really sort of tough five years, maybe even longer actually. It’s our 10-year wedding anniversary and it was that year that … through his Parkinson’s, his spine in his back is obviously curved, and then it caused problems with his discs and then he had to have a wheelchair at the wedding. He could walk some bits of it.”
Mike, who is married to Zara Tindall, the daughter of Princess Anne, has always kept his parents largely out of the spotlight.
Phil and his wife Linda, a social worker, are doting grandparents to Mike and Zara’s children, Mia, Lena and Lucas.
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