BBC star found love with third wife six months after partner's death

Paul Merton stands as a cherished comedy icon following his years of delivering slapstick brilliance to Have I Got News For You. Yet, beneath the entertainer's facade, the comedian has endured profoundly agonising chapters, including the heartbreaking death of his second wife, Sarah Parkinson, in 2003.

Merton is now blissfully wed to fellow comedian Suki Webster, and has opened up frankly about how romance found its way back into his world far earlier than he had anticipated. He emotionally shared: "I suppose this was about six or seven months [after Sarah's death]. I don't think it's one of those decisions you can make. You see what happens. You're not looking necessarily, because you have to grieve. But we were in India, we were on brandy and there was a magician in the dark. You don't think anything except, this is great fun. You don't think, 'oh, is this right or wrong?' It felt natural. It felt OK."

Suki, who performs alongside Paul in the Comedy Store Players, added: "When you fall in love, you fall in love." The duo initially bonded during a company tour of India, where both were afflicted with food poisoning.

They began chatting whilst observing a magician perform in the garden of a poorly lit establishment where they were sipping brandy and colas.

Paul has subsequently quipped that whilst the performance wasn't particularly impressive, there was "magic in the air" between the pair of them. That marked the start of a partnership which has blossomed into more than ten years of matrimony and numerous evenings performing together on stage.

For Paul, Suki's arrival represented an unforeseen beacon of hope following a particularly troubled period. His second spouse Sarah Parkinson received a diagnosis of an aggressive breast cancer variant prior to their nuptials, and tragically died merely three months after they exchanged vows. She was just 41 years old at the time.

Paul has previously described how he found comfort in humour following her passing, attending a Comedy Store show just six days afterwards to discover solace in the collective happiness of a crowd. "It goes back to that thing about the release, the relief, it takes you somewhere else," he explained.

Comedy has remained a fixture throughout Merton's existence, serving both as his profession and as an anchor during challenging periods.

He was born Paul Martin, but embraced the stage name Merton in his early days and initially gained recognition through Whose Line Is It Anyway? in 1988.

However, just as his professional life was flourishing, the programme was delayed and he suffered a mental collapse that resulted in his admission to the Maudsley psychiatric hospital for six weeks.

Despite his difficulties, he remains capable of viewing that chapter of his existence with levity, and has discussed what it felt like to be someone grappling with vastly different challenges from other patients in the facility, remarking: "I was in a room for group therapy after breakfast every morning. There was somebody who had been kicked out of their council house.

"Somebody else said his daughter was heavily into drugs. All these terrible things were happening to them. My thing was that somebody had cancelled a television series. I never said that in the session, because I knew: "That's awkward. " I still had a sense of proportion and a sense of humour about it."

Fortunately, circumstances improved dramatically for Merton, as he had transformed into a recognisable face across the nation by 1990, with the entertainer continuing as a regular presence on Have I Got News For You to this day.