Vinnie Jones weeps as he relives final moments with wife as she died at 53

Devoted Vinnie Jones wept yesterday as he revealed the tragic but tender moment his beloved wife Tanya slipped away.

The hardman footballer-turned-actor told in heartbreaking detail how he gently kissed his soulmate and told her “I love you, I love you.”

Tanya, in her favourite navy Ralph Lauren pyjamas, was surrounded by Vinnie and five family members, including her daughter Kaley, 32.

Aged 53, she had finally succumbed after a brave and dignified six-year battle with three forms of cancer.

She and Vinnie both had treatment for melanoma. While Vinnie got the all-clear, Tanya could not break free of the disease’s cruel clutches.

Vinnie shed tears but was also able to smile proudly as he revealed Tanya’s courage and told of their precious final days at home in Los Angeles.

And ruling out ever falling in love again, he declared: “She was the light of my life. I will never be with anyone else.”

Vinnie, 54, also revealed he had felt Tanya’s soul leave the room after she passed away. Later that night he sensed her presence in the form of a white light in the sky.

Speaking at Tanya’s childhood home near Watford, Vinnie told the Sunday Mirror: “In that last week of her life when the doctors said there were no more treatments, I never told her she was dying. We never spoke of that, I didn’t want her to know.

“But she kept saying ‘take me home. Can I go home now?’ She desperately wanted to go home.

"So did she know? Probably. In the hospital I slept there every night and Kaley would come every morning.

“She has never ever slept one night in hospital without me there. I have always been by her side.

"On the week of her death, the doctors said very nicely: ‘These are your options, we don’t know if it is going to be months or weeks’.

“Through my grief I said: ‘I don’t want her to be in any pain’.

“So we took her home. Straight away she was on the oxygen. Then she was on fentanyl. We got some beautiful innocent moments in those last days.

"She would try and get out of the patio windows or she would wake up and look and me and go: ‘You… you know.’ Some of the moments would make you laugh.

"These were very special moments.”

Tanya – who had an emergency heart transplant after Kaley was born – was first diagnosed with cancer in 2013.

She was treated at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles before living out her final days in the couple’s Hollywood home.

They had moved to Tinseltown after Vinnie went from footie hero to movie favourite following his breakthrough role in Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels 21 years ago.

Vinnie told the Mirror: “She would sleep a lot, wake up, then fall asleep again. The nurses and doctors said: ‘Talk away, she is listening to you.’

“There was one moment when we were talking about her horse and she was fast asleep, then all of a sudden she put her hands up like she was riding a horse.

"She was stroking her pillow, as if stroking the horse’s mane.”

Choked up, Vinnie’s voice cracked before he continued: “It proved to us she was listening. “Then when she started asking for morphine. We knew that was the countdown.”

Over her final weeks Vinnie would sleep in a room opposite to Tanya and they would blow each other kisses.

Describing the moments before she died on July 6, Vinnie went on: “I woke up to hear this coughing. I had read a lot of books, you don’t want to read them but you do, and I knew what that coughing meant.

"I flew up and went into her room. She was gasping for breath for about 25 minutes. We got everyone in the room, Kaley, her parents, her brother. We were all there. The nurse was giving her morphine.

“We knew it was the end, we were cuddling her. I kissed her a lot and told her I loved her. I kept saying: ‘I love you, I love you.”

Speaking through his tears, Vinnie added: “It was all very peaceful, then her gasps got less and less and she went quiet. I looked at the nurse and said: ‘Has she gone?’ And that was it.

“It all happened so quickly, you are not prepared for it. So we sat there for an hour with her. We were completely numb. It was as though she was still sleeping. But she was gone.

“When she finally went it felt like Tinker Bell had released from her. It felt like her spirit was moving in the room. I got peace from that.”

Later that night Vinnie received a sign from Tanya.

“We were outside until about midnight but I was the last to go to bed,” he said.

“With Tanya, she would always blow me a kiss and I would catch it and carry it with me.

“I went to go in and I looked up and there was a small white light up straight above me. I thought it was strange.

"It was right there above the house. So I went: ‘Is that you babe?’ But the light didn’t move.

“Then as I went to go in, I turned, blew her a kiss and threw it. And the light that had been there went straight over my head, then it went across my vision, then up into the sky.

“That was her saying ‘we are all done, everything is good. I’m up there, I’m going to wait for you’.

"I never believed in any of that spiritual stuff. Never. I thought it was a load of BS. But now I believe in an afterlife.”

Vinnie – who won a legion of fans as a soccer hardman with Wimbledon, Chelsea and Leeds – was married to Tanya for 25 years and adopted Kaley.

Their story is one of showbusiness’s most enduring romances. They renewed their vows in 2007 and Vinnie wore his original wedding suit.

And the star, who won the FA Cup in Wimbledon’s famous 1988 win over Liverpool, is adamant no one will ever replace Tanya in his heart.

He said: “I’m a shell. She is the only one… whenever I let myself down, or her down, she was always the strongest, the person who I answered to.

"She wouldn’t give me her blessing to meet someone else – I just know her. I can’t see it happening, I might have friends or whatever, I would be astonished if that happens.

“I think I’ve only got a little way to go until I’m with her, in the spectrum of the universe.”

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