A superfan of The Wanted who celebrated her 18th birthday with a surprise visit from the boyband has vowed to continue singer Tom Parker’s fight to raise awareness of brain tumours after his death in March. Devastated by Tom’s passing, aged 33, after being diagnosed with an inoperable glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) – a fast-growing and aggressive brain tumour – card shop assistant Kayleigh Henshaw, 30, is fundraising for Brain Tumour Research in his memory by jogging 26.2 miles in a month for the charity.
A fan since The Wanted launched in 2009, Kayleigh, who lives with her stay-at-home mum, Sharon Henshaw, 54, and warehouse supervisor dad, Paul Henshaw, 55, in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, went to one of their last gigs with Tom, in which he arrived on stage in a wheelchair, on March 12 in Birmingham – just weeks before his death.
She said of the father of two, whose brain tumour was diagnosed in October 2020: “I will never forget that performance. I don’t think anybody was thinking about how ill Tom was, they were just having a good time.”
