Shane MacGowan’s wife Victoria made a candid comment about one major reason why the pair never had children together during their decades-long relationship. Pal Johnny Depp had once told the pair he thought having babies would be the making of them – but Victoria disagreed.
Branding herself and Shane “too irresponsible” to parent kids, she joked: “I said [to Johnny], the thing is, if we had children, Shane would probably set fire to them. “I was terrified Shane was going to burn down the house because he was always dropping his cigarettes!”
She added during an interview with The Guardian last year that her husband caused a fire in actor and musician John Belushi’s bungalow at the legendary Californian hotel Chateau Marmont due to a cigarette. Victoria and Shane first met in a pub when she was just 16 years old, and began dating four years later – and the rest is history.
Now 57, devastated Victoria is saying goodbye to the man she has loved for almost four decades, following his death on Thursday aged 65. He’d been battling encephalitis – a rare condition that causes inflammation of the brain – for almost a year, while a bout of shingles which spread as far as his eye left him in agony.
Shane had already been confined to a wheelchair for several years by the time his new health woes set in. Attempting a complex dance move back in 2015 caused him to shatter and break his pelvis, and he never properly regained his mobility after the accident.
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Further accidents after that had caused him to break his right knee, and later to tear ligaments in his left one.
However, Shane found comfort in binge-watching Father Ted boxsets in hospital in his final months, chuckling away over the antics of a trio of hapless priest characters from his native Ireland.
He was allowed home from hospital just days before his death, and fans hoped that he could be on the mend.
Widower Victoria is said to have confirmed to The New York Times that his cause of death was pneumonia, although an official statement is yet to be released.
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When the much-loved frontman’s death was announced, it prompted a string of sorrowful tributes across social media, from everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Nick Cave.
His wife publicly declared that she felt “blessed beyond words” to have been “so endlessly and unconditionally loved by him” and that he would live on in her heart “forever”.
Irish President Michael D Higgins described Shane as a “genius” and one of music’s “greatest lyricists” of all time.
Meanwhile, a message was also delivered from Downing Street on behalf of Rishi Sunak, revealing that the reportedly saddened British PM felt “Christmas would not be Christmas without Fairytale Of New York”.
Bandmate Spider Stacy also joined the tributes, attaching a black and white vintage photo of the star performing in his younger years and exclaiming: “O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done.”
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