Paul O'Grady has lived a wild life – from two near-death heart attacks, the birth of his daughter and a long career in TV and radio.
It’s just been announced that he is stepping down from his much-loved show on BBC Radio 2, but this isn’t Paul’s first rodeo.
He has spent 14 years on the radio waves, but has also enjoyed a long career on telly – from taking over Blind Date to the Paul O’Grady Show.
"I’ve loved doing my Sunday afternoon show for the last 14 years and I’m going to miss my listeners, as well as the fun I’ve had with my producer Malcolm Prince, but I feel that now is the right time to go,” he told fans earlier this week.
Helen Thomas, head of Radio 2, said: “I’d like to thank Paul for so many years of his brilliant Sunday afternoon show.
“I’m sorry to see him go, but I wish Paul the very best of luck for the future and hope to work with him again as the door is always open to him here at Radio 2.”
This wasn’t the first time he’s been taken off air either, only earlier this year he was replaced by Rob Beckett for three months on Radio 2.
Paul, full name Paul James O'Grady, was born on June 14 1955 in Birkenhead where he attended Christian Brothers School.
The entertainment star comes from humble beginnings and before entering the showbiz world, shortly after graduating, he worked as a clerk in a magistrate's court.
It was during that period that he met a woman called Diane Jansen with whom he had a brief affair.
It’s uncommon knowledge that the pair actually had a child together and their daughter, Sharon, was born in 1974.
At the time, Paul felt that he was too young to be a father and decided to travel to Europe where he reportedly worked as a waiter in a brothel in Manila.
It was the 1980s that he finally came back to England and in 1985 he debuted his drag character, Lily Savage, in gay bars and clubs across London.
Savage very quickly grew in popularity and the character led to Paul’s own TV show, ‘Live From The Lilydrome’, which first aired in 1995.
He retired the drag act in 2000 when he began appearing on-screen solely as Paul O’Grady.
It was all going great for Paul in the noughties, but in 2002 disaster struck when he suffered a near-fatal heart attack in his capital city flat – he suffered another in 2006.
Since returning to England he began growing even more closer to his daughter who, in 2005, married her childhood friend Philip Moseley at Liverpool Town Hall.
There was more family joy in 2006 when Paul became a grandfather for the first time.
Sharon gave birth to her first child, a baby boy name Abel Moseley, with husband Philip on December 26 2006.
It was also that year he met his dancer husband Andre Portasio.
Andre used to perform with the English National Ballet and after the pair began dating in 2006, the pair tied the knot 10 years later in the summer of 2017.
They got married in a 30-minute ceremony in the gardens of The Goring Hotel, London, on August 5.
Since they meet in the early 2000s and following a robust career in the showbiz industry, Paul was awarded an MBE in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to entertainment.
Fastforward to 2015, Paul, now living on a farm in Kent, mourned the death of his close pal Cilla Black who was the original host of Blind Date – a show Paul inherited from his famous friend.
He began hosing Blind Date for ITV in 2017 and continues to be a household name across TV and radio.
Reeling from the shock that Paul has quit Radio 2 for good, fans are flooding social media with theories as to why the star decided to step down.
One tweeted: "Sadly I think this was always the plan - reduce the number of shows by 50% and hope he'd take the hint, which it seems he has."
Another accused the Beeb of being 'ageist' and encouraged listeners to fill in a complaints form, while a third reckoned something "very weird was going on".
However, others were more understanding of the broadcaster's decision to shake up the schedule saying they would miss Paul, but it was 'time for a change'.
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