‘I didn’t say it and I should have’: Joe Lycett shares emotional tribute to comedian Gareth Richards

Lycett said he was ‘absolutely gutted about his death and am so sad for his family’

Joe Lycett has shared his own emotional tribute to comedian Gareth Richards, following his death aged 41.

Richards, who co-hosted Skinner’s Absolute Radio show for two years from 2009 to 2011, was involved in a serious car collision near Heathrow airport on the M25 on Monday (27 March).

On Saturday (8 April), Richards’ wife Laura announced that Gareth died on Friday (7 April), having “sustained serious brain injuries” in the accident.

“It was a miracle that he arrived at the hospital alive,” she wrote. “However, the latest scan revealed that the extent of the damage was so severe that they would have to remove all of the supportive medications and allow him to be at peace.”

Following the news, figures from across the comedy world paid tribute to Richards, remembering him as a “kind and gentle” man.

In his own post, shared on Saturday night, Lycett explained that he’d met Richards when the pair shared a venue the first time he’d performed at the Edinburgh Fringe.

“[Richards] was on after me and was normally the first person I saw when I came off stage,” Lycett wrote. “He wasn’t having the best time of it that year but he was always generous and comforting, despite presumably trying to focus on his own very imminent show.

“We gigged together on and off over the last decade and reconnected more actively in the last couple of years, and I felt like he was getting to a happy and more honest place with who he was. He’d been very brave.”

The comic continued: “I’m absolutely gutted about his death and am so sad for his family.

“His last WhatsApp message to me contains, amongst other things, the words ‘love you’. I didn’t say it back then and I should have: love you too, G.”

Other comedians to pay tribute included Mock the Week star Angela Barnes, who wrote: “The news we’ve all been dreading has come that @garethrichards has left us. He was so funny and, above all, so kind and gentle. Love and strength to his family and friends and his comedy family who are all reeling from this. Rest in peace Gareth.”

“Indescribably sad about Gareth Richards,” tweeted This Is Going to Hurt author and comic Adam Kay. “It is an almost unique eulogy for a comedian that every single person they met says what a kind, sweet person they were. Rest in peace my friend.”