AA Gill: Sunday Times critic dies after cancer diagnosis

Sunday Times restaurant critic AA Gill has died, aged 62, three weeks after revealing he had cancer.

The columnist told the newspaper last month that he had been diagnosed with the "full English" of cancers. Gill, who had been having chemotherapy, said that he did not "feel cheated" and had been "very lucky" in his life.

Sunday Times editor Martin Ivens said Gill had been "a giant among journalists" and the "heart and soul" of the paper he joined in 1993.


The final column by Gill, about coming to terms with his diagnosis, will be featured in tomorrow's Sunday Times.

'Dazzling and fearless'

In a statement sent to staff on Saturday, Mr Ivens said: "It is with profound sadness that I must tell you that our much-loved colleague Adrian Gill died this morning.

"Adrian was stoical about his illness, but the suddenness of his death has shocked us all." He added: "He was the heart and soul of the paper. His wit was incomparable, his writing was dazzling and fearless, his intelligence was matched by compassion.

"Adrian was a giant among journalists. He was also our friend. We will miss him." Writing about his illness in November, Gill had said he had "an embarrassment of cancer, the full English.

"There is barely a morsel of offal not included. I have a trucker's gut-buster, gimpy, malevolent, meaty malignancy." Writers, broadcasters and journalists have paid tribute to the published author, who was known for dictating his copy over the telephone due to his dyslexia.

Jay Rayner, the broadcaster and writer, tweeted that Gill had been a "controversialist" but also "a kind man and a brilliant writer". Sunday Times political editor Tim Shipman described Gill as "the writer who first made me buy the Sunday Times".

"The best of us for 30 years has died. Very sombre mood in the office," he added.  Times Literary Supplement editor Stig Abell tweeted that Gill had been "the first journalist I learned to recognise purely from his style".

John Witherow, editor of the Sunday Times from 1994 to 2012, said Gill had been extraordinary and unique.

"In all the years I was editor of The Sunday Times, he never once produced a boring sentence or a phrase that did not shine."

Another former editor, Andrew Neil, added: "Hired AA for Sunday Times in 1993. He never forgot what he saw as huge favour. As one of finest writers of our time, he was doing the favour."

Former Daily Mirror editor and TV presenter Piers Morgan tweeted that Gill had "trashed" him for 20 years, but always did so "with magnificently eloquent savagery" as well as "an irritating kernel of truth".