Vinnie Jones says he is ‘waiting until the day he’s reunited’ with late wife Tanya

Vinnie Jones has said that he is ‘waiting until the day he’s reunited with his wife Tanya’ as he revealed his heartbreak over her death to cancer.

The ex-footballer, 55, detailed his pain over her loss in his memoir Lost Without You which tells how he held her as she took her last breath.

Vinnie had been with Tanya for more than 27 years before her tragic death in July 2019 from skin cancer. 

In an extract of the book published in The Sun, he penned: ‘I was holding her when she was taking her last breaths.  

‘I felt the pain leave her. It had been six years of pain, but now it was flying away, Tinker Bells of pain flying from her body. I felt Tanya leave.

‘Tanya Jones died on Saturday July 6, 2019, surrounded by everyone she loved and everyone who loved her. She was 53 years old. And she was everything.

‘I sometimes tell people that I’m just waiting to be reunited with Tans. I suppose in some ways I’m just hanging around, half-living, until I get to see her again.’

The sneak-preview of the book goes on to explain her health issues after having a transplant including kidney problems, seizures and having a blood clot on her lung.

The couple, who first met as children, married in 1994 before both of them were diagnosed with melanoma. 

Tanya had already had a heart transplant aged 21 and beat cervical cancer twice before being diagnosed with the skin cancer in 2013. 

She initially beat it but the disease later returned and she passed away at the couple’s Los Angeles home last year aged 53. 

The extract goes on to say how Tanya fought the condition with ‘incredible grace’, with Vinnie describing his childhood sweetheart as ‘the strongest person you ever met’. 

He also explained how the nights are the ‘loneliest’ when they would usually watch TV and talk about their days together, before adding that there have been hundreds of tears since her passing.

In July Vinnie revealed that he ‘still cries every day’ one year after losing his wife, as he said he lives his life with her ‘guiding hand on his shoulder’.

Speaking ahead of the heartbreaking anniversary, Vinnie told the Mirror: ‘I still cry every day. I’ve only just lost her. It’s the celebration of her life on Monday, and to be honest I hope I never stop crying.

‘I’m not rolling around on the floor bawling my eyes out but what’s happened has brought out emotions in me that maybe I didn’t think I had.

‘Sometimes during the day ­something strange will trigger it. It’ll be a jolt, and my eyes will water up. She’s with me all the time, I know she is. I feel I’ve got a guiding hand on my shoulder. That’s how I’ll continue to live my life.’