Heartbroken Rob Rinder reveals his dad has died after secret health battle as he shares emotional tribute online

HEARTBROKEN Robert Rinder has revealed his dad has died aged 73 following a secret health battle. The TV presenter and barrister took to his Instagram grid to praise his “funny, beautifully flawed, loving” father David after his passing. Rob Rinder has revealed his dad David has sadly died aged 73 Credit: Rex The broadcaster and barrister took to Instagram to share a childhood snaps and the sad update Credit: Instagram He died following a battle with Lewy Body Dementia, a progressive brain disorder, surrounded by his loved ones. Rob, 48, uploaded a snapshot showing him as a youngster with his father, as well as his parent in his youth. Sign up for the TV newsletter Thank you! In his heartbreaking caption he wrote: My dad died yesterday aged 73. I wasn’t sure whether to share this but if it brings attention to an illness too few people understand, perhaps it belongs here. “A London cabbie & lifelong Spurs supporter, he was there for every one of my brothers’ and his grandsons’ football matches. I once represented him at the Carriage Office for bad driving; I loved him but the prosecution had a case… He said the London cabbie had been battling Lewy body dementia Credit: Instagram He was raised by his mum, Angela Cohen Credit: BBC Pictures' Digital Picture “My parents divorced when I was little so I did not grow up with him at home. “We were very different men. I loved opera and all its drama; he loved Tottenham and cigarettes. We both took people as we found them and we both loved women, though in rather different ways. I never once doubted his pride in me. “When I came out he responded with magnificent indifference: I was still his son, there was nothing else to discuss”. Rob, who was raised by his mum Angela Cohen, continued: “In the last years of his life Jewish Care became his home, a place where dignity and tenderness were practised every day. Walid and Tosin, among so many others there, cared for him and came to kiss him goodbye. Most read in Showbiz “A Jewish man, held in his final days by people of different faiths: a quiet reminder that what is sacred in us is also what we share. He died with his family around him, loved and held to the last. “Funny, beautifully flawed, loving and my dad. “Lewy body dementia took him far too young. It made the familiar strange and the certain uncertain. Dementia can obscure a person but it does not erase them. “At least one in ten people living with dementia has Lewy body’s, around 125,000 people in the UK yet it remains poorly understood, frequently missed & desperately under-researched. Please learn its name, learn its signs and if you can support the work to change that”. His famous followers were quick to share their condolences, and Melvin O’Doom posted: “So sorry for your loss Rob sending love to you and your family”. Dermot O’Leary put: “So sorry Rob, lovely words. Sending our love xx” Chef Matt Tebbutt then added: “So sorry. Sending love Rob. Xxxx” Rob’s mother brought him up, along with his older brother Craig, as a single mum after her marriage ended when her sons were young. In 2017, he told Loose Women that his sense of justice comes from the values his mother instilled in him as a child. Angela’s father, Morris Malenicky, was a Holocaust survivor, with many of her family killed in a Nazi concentration camp. Speaking to The Sunday Times, Angela previously said of her marriage: “I got married very young, too young, perhaps, at 19. “I was divorced at 29, with two sons“. 1 comment1