Gill Catchpole, the wife of musician James Morrison, has died at the age of 45, according to reports.
The mother of two daughters – aged five and 15 – was found dead at their family home in Gloucestershire on Friday, a friend was reported as saying.
There were no suspicious circumstances surrounding her death, the source told The Sun.
Gill Catchpole and James Morrison met when he was 17— (Getty Images)
“Gill was found dead on Friday at the family’s home in Whitminster. James is devastated and is being supported by his family,” they said.
“He is holding it together for their girls but has asked for the family to be left alone to grieve in private.”
The couple had been together for two decades, after meeting when Gill moved into James’s mother’s home as a lodger when he was just 17 years old.
The Brit Award-winning songwriter also revealed in 2015 that he had taken time out of the music industry after suffering the loss of his father in 2010, who died of liver complications brought on by alcohol addiction, shortly before both his older brother and 21-year-old nephew also died in the space of a year.
“Spiritually, I had the wind kicked out of me. I stopped believing the world was good,” he told The Independent at the time.
The ‘Broken Strings’ singer shot to fame in 2006— (Michael Buckner/Getty Images)
Morrison – who rose to fame in 2006 with debut single “You Give Me Something” – previously described meeting Gill as a “fairytale” and recalled trying to impress her by “serenading” her with songs from a Stevie Wonder album he had been learning at the time.
“When she moved in, I started singing all the songs off that album to her. I was playing all of that stuff on the acoustic guitar,” Morrison, now aged 39, told the podcast White Wine Question Time.
“I'm not like: ‘I love romance.’ But I do find certain things romantic and the fact that we met each other the way we did. It's like a little fairytale or something.”
While the pair “had a connection straight away”, she had a boyfriend when they first met, so it was two years before they got together. “I didn’t want to tell her that I fell in love with her the first moment I set eyes on her because I didn’t know, I never fell in love before,” he said in 2021.
Gill had reportedly been suffering health problems which led to a kidney transplant in late 2022, and wrote on her cafe’s business page in November 2023: “What a difference a year makes. This time last year I was having my kidney transplant and a year on after many ups downs and heartache I am a here owning my own business.
“At the start of this year I myself never saw this coming. For anyone out there struggling I can tell you from experience it does get better. Thanks to my amazing family and friends that have been there through it all and picked up the many pieces of me and my life. You all know who you are. Today I feel blessed.”
Gloucester Police said in a statement to The Independent on Monday that they were called to Whitminster at around 9.10am on Friday following concerns for the welfare of a resident.
“Officers attended and the body of a woman in her 40s was found within an address,” the force said. “The death is being treated as non-suspicious at this time. The coroners and woman’s next of kin have been informed.”
