TRAGIC DALE’S SECRET AGONY
DALE WINTON: May 22, 1955 – April 18, 2018
TORMENTED Dale Winton is said to have died from a broken heart after he split up with a man he told pals was “the only one for me”.
The TV host, 62, was seen “shaking uncontrollably” and “babbling incoherently” about his lost love just weeks before he was found dead at his home on Wednesday.
A life-long pal of the Supermarket Sweep star, who asked not to be named, said Dale was in “an absolute state” when he last saw him at one of his favourite London restaurants.
He told the Daily Star Sunday: “Dale looked terrible – bloated and unhealthy and he had a bad shake in both hands.
“After some small talk during which I politely skirted around the fact he was looking awful, he started to talk about how he was lonely and still pining over a lost love.
“He told me he had never got over a bad break-up a few years ago and was feeling terrible. He told me his ex was the one and the only one for him.
“Looking back, it was pretty obvious he was referring to the relationship that caused him to go into a dark place.
“It’s such a shame he’s gone as he was a lovely bloke.”
Dale spoke in 2016 about how he was plunged into despair after a serious relationship collapsed.
He was so upset he could barely leave the house. Our source said the failure of the romance “ended Dale”.
The source – who was very close to Dale at the height of his fame – added: “Dale had a lot of health issues which he recently talked about after having surgery on his knee and shoulder.
“But if you asked me what really ended him, I’d say he died of a broken heart.
“Loneliness combined with ill health can be a killer, so saying someone died of a broken heart is something I believe is a true cause of many people’s deaths, including Dale’s.”
Dale came out as gay in 2002 after decades of speculation about his sexuality. But he always refused to reveal the identity of his boyfriends. He admitted having “several” relationships with mystery men in the 1990s and 2000s – including a “high-profile” married man.
He apparently also fell for straight comedian David Baddiel, 53, who said in 2011 that Dale had pursued him.
One of his relationships lasted eight years, and in 2016 he spoke of the breakdown of a romance that caused him to descend into depression.
It is believed that his heartbreak was linked to the split with a lover in 2011.
Dale later said of his relationship collapse: “I had a very bad year. I should have taken myself off the TV but I didn’t.
“I did not want to put one foot in front of the other outside the house. I would not leave the house. “Five years I went through it. I wanted to withdraw – if you’ve never had it, you’ll never understand it.”
Dale was 21 when his 39-year-old actress mother Sheree took her own life after decades fighting depression. He found her dead after she put a Do Not Disturb sign on her bedroom door. Dale’s father had earlier died from complications linked to obesity and heart, liver and kidney failure when the star was 13.
Dale had said in his autobiography his mum had tried killing herself several times in the years before her death. Her first suicide attempt of which he was aware happened when he was aged only eight.
Dale said: “I am very sure that, during the period from 1971 to 1976, when mum was making her suicide attempts, PMT was at the root of her problems.
“The Christmas after she died I actually found a diary in which she’d written, ‘I am feeling so unmaternal. I love my son, but I feel so unmaternal at the moment. This is not me. What’s going on’?”
Although police are not treating Dale’s death as suspicious, they want to investigate the circumstances. THIS is the moment Dale Winton first came out of the closet – in my bedroom!
The much-loved star told me he was gay years before he came out to the world but swore me to secrecy.
Not that the revelation in his 2002 autobiography can have shocked anyone.
We first met on Celebrity Squares 25 years ago and became such good pals that when my wife told him she was expecting our daughter, Dale insisted on being her godfather. We both loved Florida. Dale would often meet us in St Pete beach and we’d end up in Cody’s Roadhouse where he’d have a full rack of ribs. (He embraced the Atkins diet wholeheartedly).
We did TV together. His Pets Win Prizes, my Bushell On The Box.
On screen he was a total pro, off-stage he was funny and indiscreet in equal measure.
It’s a mark of how much he trusted me that he would pour his heart out about his boyfriends – at least three abused him.
In later years he fought debilitating depression, but usually he was upbeat and fun to be around.
Dale loved music, especially country. He often called to tell my wife, who is a country