Richard Branson has shared heartbreaking new details about the final hours he spent with his wife Joan, revealing she died “quickly and painlessly” while they were on the same hospital floor after suffering separate injuries.
The Virgin boss, 75, confirmed on Tuesday that his partner of 50 years had passed away, calling her his best friend and the centre of their family. In a new, longer statement, Richard opened up about the intimate moments they shared just before she slipped away.
“Holly, Sam and I are all together now, doing our best to smile through the tears and to focus on all the good things Joan brought into our world. There are so many,” he wrote, explaining that grief is mixing with gratitude for the life they built together.
Richard recalled how the couple somehow ended up back side by side in hospital, despite being thousands of miles apart just days earlier. “As many already know, I’d come off my bike in India and hurt my shoulder. Joan was recovering from her own back injury in hospital in England,” he explained.
“In the way life sometimes surprises you, I found myself moved to a room just down the corridor from her. We laughed together about how typical it was of us to end up on the same floor, like love-struck teenagers delighted to find each other again.”
He said they enjoyed what would become their last meal together, unaware of how little time they had left. “We had a lovely lunch that day. She was in positive spirits and getting stronger. She smiled at me, that radiant smile that lit up her whole face, the same smile I fell in love with the very first moment I saw her, half a century ago,” he wrote.
Then, everything changed in an instant. “Then suddenly, she was gone, quickly and painlessly. And thankfully, I was right by her side. It brings us all great comfort to know we were together.”
Richard also reflected on their extraordinary final year – one that, from the outside, looked full of joy and celebration. He remembered Joan’s 80th birthday party at Kasbah Tamadot in Morocco, where she was “surrounded by her closest friends”, as well as their son Sam’s 40th birthday on board Virgin Voyages, and “countless moments where she was beaming with happiness”.
“What an incredible final year we all had together,” he wrote. “She lived so fully and joyfully, always thinking of others, always lifting everyone else up. To see her so happy in those last months is something we will treasure forever.”
In his letter, Richard admitted life without Joan now feels almost impossible to imagine. “Life will never be the same without her. But we have fifty incredible years of memories – years filled with tears and laughter, kindness, and a love that shaped our family more than words could ever capture. It was a relationship that worked. We just had lots of laughs. We were very lucky.”
He went on to pay tribute to the tight-knit family they built together and the grandchildren who adored her. “We are devastated she is gone. But I am far more grateful for the extraordinary gift of the life we shared – with our remarkable kids, Sam and Holly, and our wonderful grandkids, who adored her (and her sweets!) just as deeply as I did.”
Closing his message, Richard described Joan as the quiet, steady force at the heart of everything he has ever done. “Joan was my everything, the shining star around which our family’s universe has always orbited. That light is not gone; it’s just taken on a new shape. It will guide us forward. And we will carry her with us, always.”
