Kelsey Parker: 'Christmas will never be the same again after losing Tom'
12.12.2023 - 16:09
/ ok.co.uk
It’s been a tough 18 months for Kelsey Parker, who lost her husband Tom in March last year to an aggressive brain tumour. Now the mother-of-two is preparing for her second Christmas without the singer – and it’s proving tough for her. “I feel like my Christmas spirit has been sucked out of me.
I’m not really looking forward to it, for obvious reasons,” says Kelsey speaking exclusively to us at Action For Children’s Starry Night Gala. Despite her struggles, though, Kelsey, 33, is determined to stay strong for daughter Aurelia, four, and three-year-old son, Bodhi, her children with Tom. She says, “My kids are excited for Christmas so I want it to be as magical and amazing for them as possible.
But it’s still going to be so tough for me because my Christmas is never going to be the same again. “They’re really looking forward to it – but they have been to see a lot of different Father Christmases, which is confusing for them. So I’m having to explain that the reason they’ve seen so many is that they are Santa’s workers and the real one lives in the North Pole.
I’m hoping they are buying it.” Tom, who was 33 when he died, lives on in his children’s hearts. “They believe in the magic, but they ask me every day about their dad, too, and speak to him all the time,” Kelsey says. “So it is hard.” She met Tom in 2009, a year before he shot to fame with boy band The Wanted, alongside Max George, Siva Kaneswaran, Jay McGuiness and Nathan Sykes.
The couple tied the knot in 2018 with a ceremony in Surrey, and referred to each other as their soulmates.