Linda Nolan's stepson dies from cancer - just four months after singer, 65, finally lost 20-year battle with the same disease
Pop legend Linda Nolan 's beloved stepson has died following his own battle with cancer - just months after the iconic singer lost her life to the same disease.
Lloyd passed away on Tuesday and had been diagnosed with incurable throat cancer nearly two years earlier.
A close family friend said: 'They were fighting side by side, Linda would finish her treatment and text him to check in. They joked about their meds, shared their side effects, cried together too. Linda really thought he'd outlive her. She needed that belief.'
Heartfelt tributes have already poured in for Lloyd, with the stepson's cousin saying his 'brain won't accept this is true'.
He added that cancer had 'ripped my family apart on both sides and every angle for the past 5 months', before concluding 'I'm done with being positive right now'.
The tragic comments come amid a friend's testimony that Linda would be 'screaming this isn't fair' if she was still around.
They added: 'Lloyd wasn't just Brian's son, he became Linda's too. She loved him with all her heart.
'If Linda were here, she'd be screaming that this isn't fair. She fought for everyone else, now we've lost them both. It's more than any family should bear. They had a special relationship.'
Lloyd, the son of Linda's late husband Brian Hudson, was diagnosed with throat cancer in September 2023.
Surgery was ruled out after it emerged the tumour was so large and dangerously close to his vocal cords.
In comes after the Dublin-born singer's own death was revealed in a statement four months ago released by her agent Dermot McNamara, who said she passed away from double pneumonia amid her cancer battle.
And also in the family, Lloyd's father Brian had tragically died of cancer in 2007 - leaving Linda devastated and strengthening her bond with her stepson.
In a statement shared to Facebook, Lloyd's cousin said: 'My brain won't accept this is true.
'My big cousin. The one that took me to my first ever London warehouse DnB rave, played wild with me, but protected me, could make me belly laugh with crude humour. I have to hold on to the memories. Some of the best and craziest bastard memories I have ever made that I will take to the grave.
'I hope you were welcomed by your Pops and Aunty Lin and you are no longer suffering.
The bereaved cousin said: 'I hope you were welcomed by your Pops and Aunty Lin and you are no longer suffering'
There were devastating parallels with Lloyd's experience who was informed his cancer had spread to his lungs and was now incurable
'The injustice of you being so insightful recently and having so many years ripped away from you is the part that is destroying me more than anything.
'I have been sat here crying hoping this was all a really bad nightmare.. but as time goes by the reality is becoming clearer and it's really swept my legs from under me.
'I love you forever and always Lloyd. And I will miss you beyond any words I have in my vocabulary.'
The bereaved cousin added: 'My heart is shattered'.
There were devastating parallels between Linda and Lloyd's experience - as the iconic singer was told her brain tumours had started growing again just as Lloyd was informed his cancer had spread to his lungs and was now incurable.
This was not after there had been reason to believe things were getting better by April 2024 as scans showed Lloyd's throat had cleared.
A friend said Linda was 'absolutely over the moon' and 'she kept saying, "I'll be the one to go, but he's going to be fine".
The friend added: 'She clung to that'.
Linda was buried in the same church where she held Brian's funeral, after she lost him to skin cancer in 2007 when he was 60 years old.
She was laid to rest in a sparkly pink coffin, with her grieving sister Coleen among those to say Linda had a 'heart full of compassion and always knew how to bring comfort and joy to those around her'.
It came after a long 20-year battle with the disease which saw Linda start a new course of chemotherapy, including a cutting-edge drug called Enhertu.
Privately, the Irish singer was more focussed on her stepson.
Lloyd undertook session after session of radiotherapy, supported closely by Linda.
He was rushed to hospital just weeks into the treatment after suffering a bleed - ulcers had formed around the tumour, complicating his recovery.
Despite the bleak prospects, he kept going through it all, with friends saying Lloyd 'never wanted pity' and 'just wanted to beat it', adding 'this disease is cruel'.
Just weeks after Linda's funeral - attended by familiar faces across the entertainment industry, like Paul Chuckle and Tommy Cannon - another layer of tragedy was added to the mourning family's story as Linda's brother Brian Nolan revealed weeks later he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
A friend said: 'It's like wave after wave. The Nolans have been through so so much and now this.'
Linda Nolan rose to fame alongside her sisters as a member of the girlband The Nolan Sisters, and after leaving the band pursued a career in stage musicals.
Just before her death, she told The Mirror she had begun to feel better, after falling ill over Christmas with what she thought was a bout of flu.
Speaking of the loss of her husband, Linda said: 'I hate my life without Brian. Some nights I wake up and reach out for him before I remember he's not there. I know I can survive. But life is so much less without him.'
Four years ago, Linda admitted her one regret in life is that she and Brian never had children together.
'My only regret in life is that I didn't have children and that is nobody's fault but my own,' she told RSVP Magazine.
'The reason I didn't have children is because I let my career get in the way and I thought, ''No, I will wait''. But I don't dwell on it, and I don't cry whenever I see a baby.'
Linda's sisters also have a history of cancer, with herself, Coleen and Anne all receiving diagnoses and Bernie passing away from the disease in 2013.
Linda's sister Anne was the first to be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, and while she got the all-clear, she was diagnoses again in April 2020.
Just days later Linda was told her secondary breast cancer had spread to her liver, so the sisters decided to undergo their chemotherapy together.
The sisters went on to write Stronger Together, an account of their journey with cancer with no-holds-barred descriptions of their treatments, the side effects, how they coped with losing their hair and how they had emerged on the other side.
The book is interspersed with recollections of how cancer has affected those close to them, including their late sister Bernie and also Linda's late husband, Brian.
In 2013 the family were devastated when Linda's sister Bernadette, better known as Bernie, died from breast cancer in 2013.
Bernie was first diagnosed with the disease in April 2010, and while she was later declared cancer-free following a mastectomy, in October 2012 it was revealed the disease had returned to her left breast, brain, lungs, liver and bones.
She passed away in July of the following year at the age of 52.
Linda was born as the sixth of eight children to Tommy and Maureen Nolan on February 23 1959 in Dublin.
Her parents - both singers - were keen to turn their young family into a musical troupe and Linda made her stage debut at the age of four.
Their relentless efforts, which often led to late-night performances on school nights, soon steered the girls to international success.
Among their chart hits were Gotta Pull Myself Together, Don't Make Waves and Attention To Me, and they earned their own BBC TV specials.
For Linda, these early years were soured by witnessing her abusive father drunkenly beat their mother, and he was also said to have sexually abused Anne, his eldest daughter, from the age of 11.
'Part of me cried, I'm ashamed to say, because he didn't do it to me and I didn't think he loved me enough,' Linda later said of her sister's torment.
She added: 'He was a Jekyll and Hyde, but when he wasn't drinking he was fabulous and he stopped drinking for many years before he died.'
At 15, she allegedly became a victim to the most sinister side of 1970s showbusiness when she claimed she was groped by Rolf Harris backstage at a concert in South Africa.
Speaking of the alleged assault in 2014, she said it left her feeling 'dumbstruck' and 'humiliated'.
Linda left the group which made her famous in 1983, but later reformed with her sisters for several comeback performances.
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