Monty Python Comedian Michael Palin Mourns Death of Wife Helen Gibbins: 'Indescribable Loss'
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Michael Palin wrote in a statement Tuesday that he and his wife Helen first met at age 16
Monty Python comedy legend Michael Palin is mourning his wife Helen Gibbins, whose death he announced on Tuesday.
Palin, 79, shared news of Helen's death on his personal website, writing that she "died peacefully in the early hours of Tuesday morning."
"She had been suffering with chronic pain for several years, which was compounded a few years ago by a diagnosis of kidney failure," Palin wrote in his statement. "We first met on a summer holiday on the Suffolk coast when we were both sixteen and we married in our early twenties."
The comedian noted that he and Gibbins had just celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary in April.
"Her death is an indescribable loss for myself, our three children and four grandchildren," Palin continued in his statement.
"Helen was the bedrock of my life," he added. "Her quietly wise judgment informed all my decisions and her humour and practical good sense was at the heart of our life together."
Palin announced in 2022 that Gibbins had moved into respite care after she did not respond well to pain medication prescribed to her, according to The Guardian.
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A 2012 profile on Palin by The Independent reports that the comedian and Gibbins' first meeting as teenagers went on to inspire aspects of the 1987 BBC television movie East of Ipswich, which Palin wrote. In real life, the pair married in 1966 and had lived together at the same address since 1968, according to the outlet.
"Fame really is a trap," Palin told the outlet at the time while speaking about his career. "When I start complaining about this, Helen quite rightly says: 'Well, here's an idea: don't make another 10-part television series.' But fame would cut anybody off from the kind of things that I like to do."
Related:Monty Python's John Cleese, Michael Palin React to Terry Jones' Death: 'Two Down, Four to Go'
Palin and the surviving members of Monty Python mourned the loss of former troupe member Terry Jones after his death at age 77 in 2020. Following Jones' death, four of the original six troupe members survive: cofounder Graham Chapman died in 1989 at age 48.
Aside from Palin, Gibbins is survived by the couple's children three children and four grandchildren, as the actor and comedian wrote in his statement.
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