Gemma Whelan Honors Late Mother on Tragic Anniversary

star Gemma Whelan has revealed her mother tragically drowned as she marked a year since her death in an emotional post on Monday night. 

The actress, 45, revealed back in March that this was her first Mother's Day without her mum yet she didn't share the circumstances surrounding her passing. 

However taking to Instagram a year on from her death, Gemma revealed that her 'mighty mum' drowned while abroad as she confessed: 'There's such a big hole in me now.' 

Gemma shared a snap of the lake in where half of her ashes are scattered and explained that the other half will be scattered with her dad in a river in the Lake District.  

In a lengthy caption she penned: 'It has been a year since we had the catastrophic shock that our brilliant bright mum had drowned abroad.

'There's such a big hole in me now, but most people wouldn't know, and while I place this carefully here, my intention is really to address the profound solitude and loneliness of a sudden tragic shocking death, where quite rightly and happily many people do not experience it and therefore can't relate. Although I fully acknowledge grief is different for everyone.

'I suppose I'm looking to say that if you're in a similar position of sudden loss and reeling from shock, as I continue to, you're not alone.

'What terrible things we can endure, and be ok in the not ok.'

She continued: 'I don't think this too shall ever pass but I have excellent friends and family and support and I forge forward with positivity and hope that the hole fills a little year on year with good memories of her and new memories with my kids.

'I still go to call her, I still take photos thinking she'll love them and then remember. It's bloody awful.

'However, I am also happy and fulfilled and smiling for real most of the time. It just catches me out.

'The photo is where some of her is scattered in her native Canada, the rest will go with my dad in a river in the Lake District when no one is looking as apparently it's illegal to scatter willy nilly, but she'd love it if we got caught, forever the rebel. Love you mum. X'

Taking to the comments to offer their condolences fellow actress Suranne Jones penned: 'Sending love to you Gemma. I recognise the pain❤️ I’m so sorry'.

Meanwhile Sophie Rundle added: 'Oh love. Big, big enormous love to you'.

Gemma was born in Leeds, growing up in the Midlands where she went on to train as a yoga teacher ‘because my mum said I’d need something to fall back on – all the faith!’ she told The Daily Mail's You Magazine in 2023.

As a teenager, she became anorexic and was hospitalised. She has previously described overcoming the eating disorder as her ‘greatest achievement’ and said the experience shaped her personality.

Speaking to The Times, Gemma said: 'It's part of my life. If it can help one or two people maybe feel it’s not hopeless and you can get better, then yeah, I’ll share it.

'I am not so private I wouldn’t talk about that. Because it really shaped me. It formed so much of my life and the way I live my life and my personality and my approach to things.'

Her career began in comedy, having done stand-up as a module on her performing arts degree at Middlesex University.

As a graduate she would sit down every Monday with an industry printout of small acting roles and send letters and photographs to every one: ‘From my little flat in Greenwich, where I lived in the lounge – me and two boys were sharing it and we couldn’t afford a three-bed,' she told You Magazine.

Gemma eventually went on to star as Marian, sister of Anne Lister, in the 19th-century drama Gentleman Jack, and Kate in Upstart Crow, the BBC2 sitcom about Shakespeare, after being cast in Game Of Thrones in 2011.

She shares two children with her writer and comedian husband Gerry, who works part-time in patient liaison at London’s Maudsley Hospital.

Gemma previously has explained how her dad had begged her not to have children, just before he died of cancer in 2016.

‘He said, “Will you promise me not to have children?” But only because of the state of the world that I would be bringing them into. I mean, the world he left behind was peachy compared to now.

'Seven years ago, Brexit hadn’t been finalised, there was still a bit of hope and decent weather; a relative utopia. But I fully agreed with him. Then he passed away and the urge to make my own children was so strong. And just over a year later Frances arrived.

‘It is strange how it happened. Gerry and I had been together for years, quite content, like, “Guess we don’t need children, we’re having fun, aren’t we? This is fine,"' she told You Magazine.

'But you grow up quickly when you lose a parent. It’s a seismic shift. I wanted to make my own family.’

The couple rushed through a wedding when she was five months pregnant, Gemma admitted.

Their daughter, Frances, now nine, was born a few months later, joined by her brother Freddie in 2021.