Cilla Black: 'I don't want to live past 75'

Cilla Black: 'I don't want to live past 75'
Cilla Black: 'I don't want to live past 75' (Image credit: PA Wire/Press Association Images)

Cilla Black said she wants to 'bow out' of life in eight years' time when she gets to the age of 75. The 67-year-old star said she was at 'a really good point' in her life, but she did not want to go on forever. She told this week's Yours Magazine: "I was reading about an age pill that's been developed which they claim will make you live longer. That's not for me. I don't want to live beyond the age of 75. That would be a good point to bow out." The singer and television presenter said she was influenced by the experience of her mother who survived for several years despite having to be fed through a tube. She said: "Unfortunately - and I do mean that - her heart was strong. The result was that she lived much longer than she wanted to. "I remember asking her doctor if she could do something to relieve my mother's suffering. I'm not talking about euthanasia. I just wanted the pain to stop for her. But the short answer was no."

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.