The longtime radio and TV broadcaster Paul Gambaccini has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
The 77-year-old presenter, who has been a regular on the BBC since the 1970s and has one of the most recognisable voices on British radio, shared a statement revealing the diagnosis he received in 2025.
He said: “As Freddie Mercury once sang, you can’t turn back the clock, you can’t turn back the tide. Ain’t that a shame. There’s no denying it’s a serious condition with an uncertain future, but for now life goes on as normal and I continue to broadcast.”
The American-British DJ said he was grateful for the kindness he had already received. Since his diagnosis, he has been supported by the Alzheimer’s Society.
Gambaccini said he would be as open as he could be as things progress, adding that he wanted “to be given the space to keep on broadcasting the music I love to the listeners I love even more. These are the days of our lives.”
The DJ is still on the radio, presenting the Paul Gambaccini Collection on BBC Radio 2 every Sunday and hosting shows on Greatest Hits Radio.
Michelle Dyson, the chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society, said Gambaccini’s experience showed there could be life after a dementia diagnosis.
She added: “Receiving a dementia diagnosis can be frightening, but it can also open the door to receiving treatment and support. We hope that by sharing his diagnosis, Paul will encourage others to spot the symptoms and reach out if they are worried about themselves or a loved one.”
Gambaccini found himself caught up in the aftermath of Operation Yewtree, which was led by the Metropolitan police following the revelations about the paedophile Jimmy Savile.
In 2018, Gambaccini won a payout from the Crown Prosecution Service over an unfounded case regarding historical sexual abuse allegations, which was dropped and called “completely fictitious”.
He called the BBC the “worst employer of all time” for its treatment of him during the scandal, saying the then director general, Tony Hall, caved in during a media “witch-hunt” after the Savile affair.
Gambaccini once told the Guardian he liked to go tenpin bowling every Sunday in order to keep active and aimed to bowl a score of more than 150 “because that was Richard Nixon’s average”.
He said he also visited the gym twice a week, went to bed by 11.30pm every night and had a siesta “every afternoon since my 20s”, putting the habit down to his “Italian blood”.
Sometimes known by his nicknames of “The Great Gambo” and “The Professor of Pop”, Gambaccini was born in New York and moved to the UK, initially to study at the University of Oxford before going on to establish himself as a radio presenter.
He was inducted into the Radio Academy Hall of Fame in 2005.
