The piece is due to air during the open ceremony on BBC One at 8pm, and will also feature Paul Hollywood, Vitalii Mykolenko, Ricky Tomlinson, and more. In his 2012 biography Still Standing, O’Grady said that his relationship with Portasio “just crept up on us”. It was his second marriage, with the pair getting together after O’Grady ended his 28-year marriage to the woman he married in 1977. The LGBTQ+ rights campaigner Peter Tatchell remembered O’Grady as “one of the loveliest people you could ever meet.

Everyone whose lives he touched will miss him greatly, as will those who enjoyed his wit and admired his compassion”. His dogs also became TV stars, with another rescue, Buster, appearing alongside him on several programmes including chat show The Paul O’Grady Show.O’Grady, who sprang to fame as his beloved drag alter ego Lily Savage, went on to present The Big Breakfast before fronting The Paul O’Grady Show, Blind Date, Blankety Blank, and ITV’s multi-award-winning For The Love Of Dogs. He admitted that he forgot they were married, and only ended things 28 years later after his future came into question. The Birkenhead-born comic will feature in a short film for the official opening of the Eurovision Song Contest, which is taking place in Liverpool, on behalf of Ukraine. Beloved entertainer Paul O’Grady, who died recently at the age of 67, is set to make an emotional appearance at Eurovision in one of the last things the TV star filmed.

His love for rescue dogs was so prominent that his hometown of Birkenhead has plans to line the streets with dogs to mark his funeral. During the first series of For the Love of Dogs, O’Grady took home Eddie, a Chihuahua Jack Russell-cross puppy.This week, Portasio invited local fans of the late star to mourn his death at the funeral procession, which will take place in the village of Aldington, Kent. Sadly, Buster died of cancer in 2009, but O’Grady’s dog Olga, a Cairn Cross terrier, continued to appear alongside him on TV. However at the time of his death he and Portasio were sharing their home with five dogs – Arfur, Conchita, Eddie, Nancy and Sausage, known as Soz. He later adopted Boycie, a shih-tzy in 2014; Conchita, a Maltese in 2015; Arfur, a mongrel puppy in 2017; Nancy, another mongrel puppy in 2020; and Sausage, a wire-haired dachshund in 2021.