Roman Kemp urges people to check in on their loved ones after death of best friend: ‘I wish I’d called him’

Roman Kemp has urged people to check in on their loved ones after the death of his best friend.

In August last year, Roman unexpectedly lost one of his closest friends and work colleagues, Joe Lyons.

The pair had worked together at Capital FM, with Roman crediting Joe for ‘teaching him everything’ when it came to radio and telling fans he was left ‘devastated’ over the news.

Now, the radio presenter has opened up on Instagram about the experience, which he described as the ‘lowest’ he’s ever felt.

‘Since then I’ve been fortunate enough to go and speak to friendship groups who have also lost someone close to them for a BBC documentary,’ he explained. ‘What I can see is that in so many cases, you cannot see your friends that are struggling.

‘You can’t notice it. It is those people that you don’t expect. And I guess what I want to put across is that I wish I’d had that chat with Joe. I wish I’d called him, I wish I’d told him I loved him, I wish I’d said, “Let’s go for a beer and let’s just talk and see how each other are”. I wish I’d pushed that.’

Roman explained that one of the groups he’d spoken to has their own rule, where they ask, ‘Are you okay?’ twice because it’s so easy to brush off the question.

‘What I’m asking you to do is do what they told me to do, which is ask it again,’ he urged fans. ‘You just never know – you might have a friend that’s struggling right now and you don’t know.

‘So I’m just saying today, get on the phone, speak to your friends, see if they’re alright, ask if they’re okay twice. And let them know that you’re there for them. I can’t tell you enough how important it is. And it’ll make such a difference.’

Roman was incredibly close to Lyons, who was known to Capital listeners simply as ‘Producer Joe’.

At the time of his death, the 28-year-old broke down in tears live on air as he paid tribute to his friend.

He told listeners: ‘We wanted to share some really sad news. I never thought I’d have to do this ever. Last Tuesday, very suddenly, we lost one of our best friends. Our producer Joe, he was a member of the Capital Breakfast family.

‘We are trying to process this all together. We wanted to share this news with you. Joe had worked for Global, the parent company, for nine years. He was the very first person I met when I walked through the door. I remember thinking he was a bit of a Del Boy.

‘He was with me right from my very first show. He taught me everything. I don’t know sitting in a radio studio without him.’

Roman is now set to front a BBC documentary about mental health, exploring why increasing numbers of young men are taking their own lives and the reasons why so many of them never ask for help.

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