SIR TOM JONES WAS FIRED AT 86. AND HE SAID THE WORDS THAT BROKE THE INTERNET. BUT IT IS THE WORDS HIS WIFE SAID TO HIM THAT WILL BREAK YOUR HEART. He did not want to leave. He said it plainly. ITV made the decision. He was told recently. The reason given was a financial difficulty with insurance. They offered him a much-reduced role. He was not thrilled. Then he said the line that is now everywhere. There is never a good time to fire an 86-year-old who is still pretty good at his job. But here is the thing nobody is talking about. The thing that sits underneath all of it. The thing that makes this more than just a TV drama. Tom Jones has been carrying something for nine years. And he finally said it out loud. Linda. His wife. His childhood sweetheart. The girl he met when they were twelve years old in Pontypridd. The girl who walked past his window while he was bedridden with tuberculosis and made him fall in love without saying a single word. The girl he married when they were both sixteen. The woman who stayed with him for fifty-nine years. Through the fame. Through the women. Through everything. She was his anchor. She was his home. And in April 2016, she died of lung cancer. She was seventy-five years old. And Tom Jones was in that hospital room with her for the last ten days. He said to her, Linda I do not know what I am going to do with myself. I will not be able to sing. I will not be able to get the words out. And Linda, the calmest person in the room, with her husband and her son crumbling beside her, said the words that Tom Jones has carried ever since. You must. Do not fall with me. I have got to go. You do not have to. You have got to go and do what we planned to do. I have just run out of time. But you have got to go and do it now. And then she said something else. Something that Tom Jones hears every single time he walks out on a stage. When you get on a stage, think of me laughing. Do not think of me as I am now. Think of all the years we had together. And that should lift you up. That is the secret. That is the thing that makes an 86-year-old man stand on a stool under a spotlight and sing Tower of Song. That is the thing that makes him close the show with Johnny B. Goode and Great Balls of Fire. That is the thing that makes him refuse to fade away. Because Linda told him not to fall with her. She told him to keep going. She told him to think of her laughing. And he does. He said it himself. She gives me strength. When she passed away, I thought I was going to crumble. I almost packed it in. But she told me not to. She told me I still had songs to sing. He went to grief counselling. He admitted he felt partly responsible for her decline. He said he should have seen it sooner. He said he should have woken up before it was too late. He carried that guilt like a stone in his chest. And then he got back on stage. Because that is what she wanted. He also carries her with him. Literally. Her ashes are in his bedroom in a beautiful box. He said she is with him. Always. He moved back to London because that is what they planned to do together. And he went alone. Because she ran out of time. So the next time you see Tom Jones on stage, smiling, singing, closing the show with Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis, remember this. He is not just a legend. He is a man who lost the woman who knew him before he was anybody. He is a man who carries guilt. He is a man who keeps going because she told him to. And every single time he opens his mouth, he is thinking of her laughing. The petition to bring him back to The Voice has passed 63,000 signatures. Will.i.am backed it. He said he was broken by this. But Tom is not thinking about The Voice. He is thinking about Linda. He is thinking about the stage. He is thinking about the promise he made to a girl from Pontypridd who loved him when he had nothing. They fired him. He sang anyway. And every note is for her. #TomJones #SirTomJones #Linda #TheVoiceUK #Legend - @k7q2z