Martin Kemp on Roman: ‘That’s my boy’
Martin Kemp broke down when son Roman opened up about helping him through the darkest of times...
He went down a storm in the I’mA Celebrity… jungle – but someone who needs no convincing about Roman Kemp’s worth is his famous dad, Martin.
The Spandau Ballet bassist, 58, admitted to breaking down in tears watching his radio presenter son, Roman, speak about what he did for him, when he was battling two brain tumours.
Roman was reflecting on helping his father learn to play music again, following surgery for a brain tumour.
The radio DJ told his rather stunned campmates: ‘ When they went back on tour, post-brain tumour, he forgot everything… So, I learnt all the Spandau songs and then retaught them to him.’
He added: ‘All it did was make us... super-close. How can my dad not be my hero through all of that? We’re a proper unit.’
And, speaking subsequently on Loose Women, Martin confessed he was overcome watching his 26-year-old son tell campmates he’d decided to learn to sing and play all of Spandau Ballet’s songs on guitar, after Martin lost a huge chunk of memory following his life-saving brain operation.
‘I was in bed, tearing up... I don’t really hear Roman talk about that period, so it was touching for me,’ Martin revealed. ‘My brain was in such a state back then that Roman taught me a lot of stuff.’
Asked how old Roman was when his dad was learning to play again, Martin’s wife, singer Shirlie, said that he must have only been ‘eight or nine’. A child.
Martin was diagnosed with two benign (noncancerous) brain tumours – one the size of a grapefruit – in 1995. It was Shirlie who had found a lump in his head, and urged him to seek the medical advice that would save his life.
‘If they’d never found this one, they wouldn’t have found the one in the middle of my brain until it was too late, and that one would have killed me,’ Martin has previously recalled.
The musician – who went on to play EastEnders bad boy Steve Owen – was left with epilepsy and a metal plate on his skull as a result of his life-saving surgery.
Things could have been very different for Martin. No wonder his boy’s emotional words in the jungle brought tears to his eyes.
‘I don’t really hear Roman talk about that period, so it was touching forr me’