Tom Jones 'felt responsible' in devastating admission about late wife's health

Music legend Sir Tom Jones has admitted he felt partly responsible as his late wife Linda's health deteriorated. The couple were married for 59 years before her death from cancer in April 2016. In the latest series of In My Own Words, the BBC Arts documentary series in which well know figures discuss their life and work, Welsh superstar Tom, 85, confesses he drew on their relationship while recording his cover of Bob Dylan's What Good Am I? in 2010.

"(When I recorded) the Bob Dylan song, What Good Am I? I was thinking of my wife because she got ill with cancer. I recorded it before she got ill, but she was in my mind when I was recording it, because she had started to...her health wasn't good, and her mental...she wasn't in a good place and I felt partly responsible for it," he confessed during the candid chat.

Clearly emotional as he recalled the memory he continued: "So it's like, 'What good am I if I'm like all the rest, if I just turn away when I see how you're dressed,' because she'd lost it.

"So that was on my mind when I recorded it, and then when she passed away, I said, 'Linda, I don't think I'd be able to carry on'.

"And she said, 'You must carry on. That's what you do. You're a singer, you've got to carry on. Don't let this destroy you'," he said.

Tom previously discussed Linda's mental health issues in a 2016 interview with The Sunday Times telling them his wife "had depression since she was young" and had "lost her spark", preferring to stay at home in Los Angeles rather than going out and about with him.

Tom and Linda married back in 1957, and remained together despite his many well-publicised infidelities.

He once famously claimed he bedded 250 women in one year at the height of his career.

But despite his self-confessed adultery, Sir Tom was completely devoted to his childhood sweetheart, whom he met in his hometown of Pontypridd at the age of 12 before they tied the knot at just 16.

The couple have one son together Mark Woodward, who works as Sir Tom's manager.

In My Own Words, returns to BBC One and iPlayer on October 21. Tom Jones episode will broadcast on October 28.