Michael Palin defends spending time away from home while late wife Helen Gibbins was ill

Sir Michael Palin has opened up on a "difficult time" that he faced just before his late wife, Helen Gibbins, passed away. The 81-year-old Monty Python star and travel documentarian announced in May 2023 that his wife of 57 years had died of kidney failure.

The legendary actor admitted that it was somewhat of a regret when he chose to go travelling to North Korea while Helen was not doing too well. Speaking to Radio Times, Michael said: "I don't have regrets really."

He then changed his mind, adding: "Perhaps towards the end, when I was doing the later travel journeys like North Korea. Helen was then less well, less good at looking after herself, unfortunately, and that was a slightly difficult time.

"I don't think she particularly wanted me to go away then, but she knew that my interest in travel and other people was very deep-seated, it wasn't because I wanted to get away from home - it wasn't that at all."

Helen was not only Michael's wife but also his childhood sweetheart and the mother of his three children.

Speaking about life after her death, the actor told the Mirror: "It's not easy. It is an unreal world you enter.

"Someone you have been with so long...and suddenly they are not there, [but] you kind of fool yourself that they are there."

He added: "Helen was the bedrock of my life. Her quietly wise judgment informed all my decisions and her humour and practical good sense was at the heart of our life together."

The TV star also revealed that he doesn't worry too much about death, stating "it's going to happen sometime soon" anyway.

When questioned about his own mortality, he said: "I'm in my eighties and lots of people don't make it there. So I don't have any great worries about death. I mean, it's going to happen sometime soon.

"I hear people say Euston station works are going to be finished in 2033 and think, 'Oh, I won't be around then.' But I've got so many interests - either books I'm researching or future travel series - which make me forget about mortality."