Richard E. Grant continues to honour his late wife, Joan Washington, by emailing her every night, keeping their connection alive even after her passing.
The dialect coach passed away in September 2021 at the age of 74, just eight months after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.
“I have no woolly spiritual delusion that she's hearing this, or that I'm going to get a response, but it somehow keeps the connection going," the 67-year-old said of his nightly emails to Joan on Davina McCall’s podcast, Begin Again.
"So I write to her – 'Dear J, today would really have amused you...' It makes it feel like that person is still there – it's an ongoing conversation."
The couple, who met in 1986 and married the same year, welcomed a daughter, Olivia, now 34, together.
Since her death, the Withnail and I actor has been open about his grief and the unexpected reactions he has faced in the wake of his wife's passing.
"Subsequent to her death, I have had people cross the road rather than talk," he shared at the Cheltenham Literature Festival last year. “Whether they think you’re going to fall apart and you’re an emotional wreck, I don’t know. But I will never speak to them again.”
He recalled one instance where longtime neighbours near their holiday home in Provence deliberately ignored him when he waved to them.
He continued: "As I walked towards them, they both turned their heads. I thought, ‘F*** you.’ I felt I was being punished because Joan had died.
“They had never acknowledged it. Maybe they didn’t know how to deal with it.”
Grant first announced his wife's passing in a heartbreaking social media post in September 2021, sharing a touching video of the two dancing together.
Elsewhere in his chat with McCall, the Saltburn star admitted that he has no interest in joining dating apps or finding another partner right now.
“I've been on sort of dates with people and I've been set up with people,” he shared.
“I have been, I’ve realised in retrospect been sort of set up but I think when you are ready to do that something will happen but it depends on what you're looking for.
“I'm not, I don't think on a daily basis 'I've got to go on a dating app'. I haven't done anything like that.”
