Who were the women in Paul O'Grady's life?

The women behind Paul O’Grady: Comedian was married to Portuguese lesbian barmaid who ‘looked like David Cassidy’ for 28 years, had a daughter with a close friend and looked up to his stoic Irish mother and sister

• The comedian, who has died aged 67, had several important women in his life
• READ MORE: Paul O’Grady’s heartbreaking last Instagram post

After Paul O’Grady died suddenly at the age of 67 on Tuesday evening, he has left behind a daughter, Sharon, and doting husband Andre Portasio, who confirmed the sad news.

However, O’Grady’s husband of six years is not actually his first marriage as, for nearly three decades, the beloved Birkenhead-born presenter was married to a friend called Teresa Fernandes.

Fernandes, who was also gay, was a Portuguese model and bartender who O’Grady had met while they were working in a club together. Fondly recalling the marriage, he said his first wife looked ‘like David Cassidy’.

The couple married in 1977 and divorced in 2005, with the TV presenter and drag queen previously describing the union as a ‘marriage of convenience’.

Fernandes was just one of the key women in O’Grady’s life, including his proud Irish mother Molly, sister Sheila and close friend Diane Jansen, with whom he shared Sharon.

Paul O’Grady has died suddenly at the age of 67, his husband Andre Portasio has confirmed. The comedian from Birkenhead, Merseyside, was very close to several members of his family including his sister Sheila and daughter Sharon. Pictured L-R: Andre Portasio, Sheila Rudd, Paul O’Grady, Sharon Mousley at the Investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace in which the comedian received an MBE, 2008

In an interview about his first spouse Fernandes, O’Grady spoke fondly of the woman he was married to for 28 years – although he admitted he briefly forgot about it altogether. 

He once said of his wife: ‘Teresa, I call her the lesbian Portuguese barmaid, was lovely. She looked like David Cassidy.’

The creator of the Lily Savage character explained the pair had met in Westbourne Grove, London, when they were working together, and that Teresa was from a ‘very strict Catholic family’ who were pestering her to get married.

After she explained the pressure she was under to O’Grady, he suggested they tie the knot to solve her issue – and the pair remained married until 2005.

O’Grady’s first wife Teresa Fernandes was lovingly dubbed the ‘lesbian Portuguese barmaid’ by the comedian, who also said she looked ‘like David Cassidy’ (Cassidy pictured in 1972)

O’Grady’s daughter Sharon was born in 1974. Sharon’s mother is Diane Jansen, with whom O’Grady remained good friends. Pictured: Father and daughter in 1995

O’Grady posted throwback images on his Instagram from time to time of family members. Here, his mother Molly is pictured with his Aunty Lil

O’Grady was incredibly close to his sister Sheila, who was 13 years his senior, and posted a photo of her as a teenager holding him as a baby on Instagram to mark her 80th birthday

As the nuptials were purely a convenient arrangement, the comedian also revealed he ended up forgetting he was married to Fernandes.

He said: ‘I had no idea we were still married until my manager Brendan said: ‘If anything happened to you, everything would go to your wife’. It’s like a real-life Corrie storyline.’ 

Fernandes was just one of several women who were significant in O’Grady’s life, including Sharon’s mother Diane.

Speaking to The Scotsman in 2021, he revealed he hadn’t realised he was gay until later in life because he’d had Sharon when he was still a teenager.

He told the newspaper: ‘I didn’t know I was gay, even up to quite a late stage, because I had a daughter when I was 17.’

In his book Still Standing: The Savage Years, he revealed how the parents had ‘buried their differences’ following their split, to raise Sharon together. They initially bonded while working together on her Aunt Flo’s market stall in Birkenhead, before Diane eventually became one of his biggest supporters in his drag act.

O’Grady recalled rehearsing his act in front of now grown-up Sharon, while Diane acted as the dresser behind-the-scenes. 

He wrote: ‘We performed in the front room for Sharon, who sat cross-legged and open-mouthed on the floor, very merry on the drinks that punters kept buying for us.’

Another important woman in his life was his sister Sheila Rudd, who was 13 years older than him.

In 2008, when the comedian was awarded his MBE by King Charles (who was then the Prince of Wales), he took Sheila to Buckingham Palace with him for the investiture ceremony.

He was pictured standing proudly next to his sister, as well as daughter Sharon and Andre. 

O’Grady often spoke fondly of Sheila who had played a part in taking care of him when he was a baby. On her 80th birthday, he posted an old photo of them from childhood on Instagram in which she is carrying him.

He wrote: ‘This young teenager holding the baby is 80 today. She’s my sister and the baby is me.’

Elsewhere the comedian has written about her in columns and has always been full of praise for his big sister.

Writing for The Mirror in 2016, the comedian called on then health secretary Jeremy Hunt to give junior doctors a pay rise after Sheila had a heart attack and he was shocked by the stress hospital staff were under.

He said his sister, who used to be a midwife, was ‘very uncomplaining’ and took it all on the chin, but added he was very worried about her.  

A year later, in an interview with the Guardian, O’Grady revealed Sheila was in hospital again with fluid on her lungs. 

He revealed: ‘We don’t go to doctors in my family, because we don’t want to make a fuss.’ 

O’Grady’s stoic attitude may well have been a result of his working-class upbringing in Birkenhead, Merseyside, by Irish parents Paul Grady (who later changed the family surname to O’Grady following a paperwork error) and Molly Savage – a surname O’Grady later adopted for his beloved drag character.

In his memoir, the comedian spoke of his pain when his mother died in 1988 and how it affected him.

He said: ‘I went to see her at the undertaker’s and told her about Lily Savage, the character I’d created on the London cabaret circuit, and what I’d been up to in the past few years, as I should have done when I’d had the opportunity.’

Just 33 years old at the time, the presenter said: ‘It was as if the pause button on the video of my life had been pushed’, adding it had changed his life forever.

He added his mother’s death had been sudden, after she had felt unwell in the morning and had been advised by the doctor to go to hospital but refused, opting to have ‘a little lie-down’ instead.

Speaking to The Scotsman, he joked about coming out to his mother when he was in his twenties.

‘My poor mother was demented! She’d grown up with house full of animals and now this. Her little boy had reached puberty and turned into Attila the Hun,’ he said.

Paul O’Grady died suddenly on Tuesday night while at home, aged 67. His husband Andre released a statement confirming the comedian had passed away ‘unexpectedly but peacefully’.

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