Jonnie Irwin Says TV Show Let Him Go After Revealing Terminal Cancer Diagnosis: 'Broke My Heart'

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo: Ian Gavan/Getty

Jonnie Irwinis opening up about how his terminal cancer diagnosis has impacted his life.

Channel 4 did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

“As soon as people find out you’ve got cancer,they write you off,” he explained. “Yes, I have stage four, and it’s terminal — but not yet, so let me live my life while I can.”

“As soon as I toldA Place In The Sunabout my diagnosis, they paid me for the rest of the season, but didn’t renew my contract. They knew I wanted to carry on. That hurt. That broke my heart. I feel hugely let down. I can’t even watch the show now,” Irwin added.

Jonnie Irwin/Instagram

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He was given six months to live when hewas first diagnosedin Aug. 2020, as doctors told him the lung cancer spread to his brain. Irwin has since survived on medication, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Irwin said he kept his diagnosis a secret for two years after the show allegedly let him go, out of concern he would lose more work. He’s since found work onEscape to the Country, despite looking “thinner” and “without hair.”

“But I didn’t get that support fromA Place In The Sun. I told them I wanted to work,” he recounted. “When I said I can get you doctor notes and assurances from my oncologist that I am fit to work, I was told, verbatim, ‘Oh, you really don’t want to go down that route, do you?'”

He said it “affected my mental health” when the show’s bosses said they “don’t think” they could get insurance.

Irwin also opened up about his need to “put a roof over our heads and food on the table” for wife Jessica Holmes, 40, and their three sons — Rex, 3, and 2-year-old twins Rafa and Cormac. “I want to go knowing that Jess and the boys are looked after,” he said.

Afterannouncing his cancer diagnosisin November 2020, Irwin revealed Thursday onGood Morning Britainthat he’sdocumenting his remaining monthsfor his young kids.

source: people.com