In her first interview since Robin’s passing last May, Dwina Gibb speaks exclusively with David Wigg, reflecting tenderly on the extraordinary love she shared with her husband—and the shattering pain of life without him.
Inside the intensive-care unit of the London Clinic, Robin Gibb lay unconscious, locked in a final battle with cancer. At his side, Dwina fought to keep her voice light, determined that even in coma he should feel only hope, never the full weight of how precarious his fight had become.
Their son, Robin-John—known to everyone as R-J—kept vigil with her, joined by Robin’s elder brother and fellow Bee Gee, Barry, who had rushed in from Miami. Having already lost his brothers Andy (to heart infection in 1986) and Maurice (to complications from a twisted intestine nine years earlier), Barry was devastated to see Robin now clinging to life.
And then, Dwina recalls, eyes glistening at the memory, something remarkable happened.
Robin Gibb and Dwina with beloved pet dogs at their home in Thame, Oxfordshire
At one unforgettable moment, Barry began softly singing to Robin—and to everyone’s amazement, Robin began mouthing the lyrics, despite being unconscious. When we played his recording of I Started a Joke, his lips moved in perfect sync with the vocals, and tears streamed down his cheeks. It was extraordinary—an emotional spark that gave us a glimmer of hope.
Later, I played excerpts from The Titanic Requiem, the orchestral work Robin had just completed. On a particularly powerful track called Distress, which he had co-written with our son R-J, the monitor’s electrodes began fluctuating wildly in response.
The nurse looked at the screen and gasped, “Wow!” And then, almost miraculously, Robin opened his eyes. It was as if the very music he had poured his soul into—especially that collaboration with R-J—had called him back to us.
We were blessed with a few beautiful weeks together after that. And then, sadly, pneumonia claimed him. But I’ll always be grateful for that precious, unexpected time we had.
The pair met in a trendy King’s Road restaurant in 1967 and continued a great relationship
I had known Robin for 45 years, ever since we first met back in 1967 at Casserole, a fashionable restaurant on King’s Road.
He and his brothers—Barry and his twin, Maurice—had just begun their journey toward stardom, bursting through the door with the boundless energy, enthusiasm, and optimism of young men chasing a dream. I vividly remember Robin sharing how he had fallen in love with Dwina—how they were kindred spirits, both with a deep passion for art and creativity.
Throughout his two-and-a-half-year battle with liver and colon cancer, Dwina never left his side. She was his constant strength and companion at every stage of the fight. Yet, despite the severity of his illness, neither of them ever truly entertained the thought that he might not survive.
They were both resolute, courageous, and endlessly hopeful—always speaking of the future, never dwelling on the possibility of farewell.
When the end finally came, it was as though a part of Dwina had been torn away. Now, in her first interview since Robin’s passing, she speaks openly and poignantly about the profound grief of losing her soulmate.
“There’s a terrible finality in that moment when the soul departs,” she says softly. “You suddenly realise there’s no way to reach them anymore. Throughout his illness, I found such strength—but now, I feel utterly drained. Right now, I’m just trying to begin the process of understanding it all.”
She pauses, reflecting. “I think this will take a long time. I feel like I’m taking baby steps into a wilderness. It’s as if I’m beginning life all over again.”
Though she never fully allowed herself to believe they might lose him, Dwina acknowledges, “I believe in fate, to some degree—and I believe that each of us has our time. This was his. His karma was complete, and whatever purpose he had here had been fulfilled. It was time for him to move on, to wherever he’s gone. I’ve given my full blessing to that. And what a remarkable legacy he’s left behind.”
We are sitting in the richly timbered lounge of the Gibbs’ extraordinary 12th-century estate in the Oxfordshire countryside—a former monastery nestled within 100 acres of pastoral beauty. The house, with its storied history dating back to the Domesday Book, once hosted Henry VIII and his young bride, Anne Boleyn.
In earlier visits, Robin would always be there to greet me at the door, his presence warm and familiar. Dwina’s embrace would follow, and then Robin would settle into his favorite armchair, flanked loyally by his two majestic Irish wolfhounds, Ollie and Missy—a scene now preserved only in memory.
Today, I had expected a somber, subdued atmosphere. But to my surprise, there’s a quiet buzz of excitement in the air. As I arrive, Dwina immediately leads me to Robin’s music room, where something unexpected has been uncovered.
She points out a dark patch on the wall—recently discovered—and now, a team of workmen is carefully investigating what lies behind it. To their amazement, they’ve revealed a section of unusual blue brickwork, suggesting the possible existence of a hidden priest-hole—or even a secret tunnel.
Dwina, dressed in a deep blue crushed velvet jacket, black trousers, and a silk scarf draped around her neck, sinks into one of the oversized sofas, visibly intrigued and animated by the find. It’s clear she longs to be sharing this moment with Robin.
“Toward the end,” she recalls gently, “Robin asked if he could come home from the hospital—but it just wasn’t possible.”
She pauses, her voice softening.
“‘What am I doing here?’ he would ask.”
The couple in happier times in 1994, when Robin was hospitalised he would always ask to just come home
He did come home once, and I remember him simply sitting in the garden, a cup of tea in hand, with the dogs quietly at his side.
Every time he returned from chemotherapy, he’d head straight to the garden, even in the rain—sitting peacefully under an umbrella. Even now, I catch myself thinking, “I must take Robin a cup of tea in the garden.” Dwina’s eyes well up with tears as she gazes out toward the garden, as though expecting to see him there still.
“Robin wanted so much to bring Ollie into the hospital,” she says with a gentle smile. “But of course, that wasn’t allowed. I always made sure to appear cheerful when I visited him—I didn’t want him to sense how serious things had become.”
He never once let on that he might not recover. There was no sense of finality, no farewell. “We watched films together—Gulliver’s Travels with Jack Black, which he absolutely loved, Jane Eyre, and the Marx Brothers. He was incredibly brave. Even in the face of the end, he never gave up hope.”
Dwina reflects on their life together with warmth and gratitude. “We had 32 years—filled with everything. The highs and lows, the kind of drama that naturally comes with rock ’n’ roll, and such wonderfully funny times. Robin had a brilliant sense of humor—all the Bee Gee brothers did.
It really was 32 years of drama and laughter. A life full of love, adventure, and unforgettable memories.”
Bee Gees – Barry 12 and 9-year-old twin brothers Robin and Maurice Gibb
Dwina, a gifted artist and writer from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, first met Robin in 1980—and almost immediately, they discovered they shared the same birthday, a coincidence that seemed to spark an instant connection.
Robin was captivated by her creative spirit and asked her to create a series of drawings for him. But she never completed them. “She believed that if she finished the artwork, the relationship might end,” Robin once confided to me. “She was very superstitious—very Irish in that way,” he said with affection.
Their friendship deepened over time, and one day, Robin mentioned he was looking for a new place to live. Dwina happened to come across a charming house near Barnes Common in southwest London and suggested it to him, believing it would be perfect.
“Little did I know,” she says now with a smile, “that I’d one day be moving into it with him.”
Five years after they met, the couple married. It was Robin’s second marriage, and rather than opt for a grand celebrity celebration, they chose something intimate and understated—a quiet ceremony at a registry office, far from the spotlight.
In the rush of their wedding day, Dwina and Robin realized they’d forgotten to buy wedding rings. Dwina recalls with a smile, “I had given Robin an Anglo-Saxon king’s ring, so he used that. He had given me a star-shaped ring with a diamond in the center, and I wore that instead.”
She had also gifted him a traditional Irish ring, and from that day on, Robin wore those rings every single day. But when he fell into a coma, his fingers swelled so badly that doctors were forced to remove them. Dwina later wore those same rings to his funeral—a deeply personal tribute to their life together.
Robin’s health struggles began in October 2010, when he was struck by severe stomach cramps. An emergency surgery revealed an intestinal blockage, and doctors warned he had just two hours to live without immediate intervention. Following the operation, further tests revealed the presence of cancer cells. Doctors urged him to return for scans—but Robin refused.
“R-J and I sat up late pleading with him to go,” Dwina recalls. “But he was determined to continue with his plans. He was scheduled to fly to Australia as part of a world tour and didn’t want to let anyone down. I begged him—‘Please, just have the scan.’”
Despite his gentle nature, Robin could be incredibly stubborn, Dwina explains. “He hated bad news—he simply didn’t want to hear it. He also wanted to see his sister, Lesley, whom he had been very close to as a child. So he went to Australia to see her, and then went ahead with a performance in New Zealand, just after they’d suffered an earthquake. Maybe it was deeply important to him to be there—but so was his health.”
Dwina was, of course, deeply worried. At the time, she couldn’t travel with him—her mother, Sadie, had been hospitalized in Ireland with the same condition Robin had: a blockage in the colon. “I had to return to Ireland to help care for her with my sister, but thankfully, she recovered.”
Later, Dwina reunited with Robin and, along with their son R-J, brought in a close family friend—a doctor and psychiatrist—to speak to Robin and help persuade him to get the scans he had so long resisted.
“Robin was a committed vegetarian, and I did everything I could—preparing healthy foods, special teas, trying all kinds of alternative therapies. I read every book I could find on nutrition and healing, hoping to build up his strength.”
Robin Gibb with his wife Dwina Murphy-Gibb and his mother Barbara and father Hugh Gibb
And for a while, the alternative treatments seemed to be helping. Robin was doing fairly well. But Dwina admits, “I don’t think the delay helped, especially once it was discovered the cancer had progressed to a secondary stage.”
She pauses, then adds with quiet conviction, “No one could have shown more courage than he did in those last couple of years. He kept going, kept working—almost like he felt this urgency to complete things. It was as if, deep down, he knew time was limited, but he refused to acknowledge it. He wouldn’t let himself believe it.”
Robin’s determination was unwavering. In fact, just two months before he passed, during what would become his final interview, he had told me—sitting in this very room over cups of tea—how confident he was that he had beaten the illness. His doctors, he said, were astonished at how well he had responded to the treatment. It was a conversation full of hope, strength, and belief.
One of his final passions was completing The Titanic Requiem, a classical work composed with his son R-J to mark the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking. “He poured everything into it,” Dwina says. “He worked relentlessly—sometimes right through the night—to see it through. He was utterly committed.”
One of the most heartbreaking moments for Dwina came when she had to leave Robin in the hospital and attend the premiere of The Titanic Requiem with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in April—without him.
“He was in a coma, and I didn’t know if I would ever hear his voice again,” she recalls quietly.
When she arrived at rehearsals the day before the performance, the weight of it all overwhelmed her, and she broke down in tears. All Robin had wanted was to be there to see the premiere. He had even been prepared to attend in a wheelchair. Barry had planned to accompany him, and every detail had been arranged. But in the end, Barry was unable to go himself, overcome with emotion after seeing his brother in intensive care.
Dwina reflects on Barry’s profound loss: “I think for Barry, it must be devastating. He’s lost three of his brothers and must feel terribly alone. Robin was such an inspiration to him.”
“Robin had this incredible gift—the ability to inspire anyone to create. Barry, of course, was very creative himself, as were all the brothers. When they were together, it was pure magic.”
Like many creative groups, there were moments of tension among the brothers, but it was always Robin—armed with his warm smile and playful spirit as the group’s court jester—who restored harmony and kept the bond strong.
The family are an extremely close one and were all there to support Robin when he was hospitalised
“Robin absolutely lived for music,” Dwina reflects. “It wasn’t merely a passion—it was his very essence, his life. Inspiration could strike him at any moment, without warning.”
“Even in the middle of the night, while I lay in bed, I’d hear the soft playing of keyboards and his angelic voice singing in the room next door. He always kept a keyboard set up beside the bedroom. His voice was truly unique—pure and clear like a choirboy’s, with an extraordinary vibrato that gave it a haunting beauty.”
The day before the funeral in June, Robin’s body—dressed impeccably in a suit and wearing his signature round blue glasses—was returned to the family home. He was laid to rest in the beamed refectory adjoining the ancient monastery chapel, a serene and fitting setting for a man whose life was steeped in history and artistry.
Loyal Ollie quietly slipped into the room, settling beside his master’s coffin to keep a vigil throughout the night. Robin had always disliked the idea of a dark hearse, so Dwina chose a white coffin, which was transported to the church in a glass carriage, drawn by two majestic black horses and led by a solemn Scottish piper.
Ollie and Missy accompanied the procession, faithful companions to the very end. During the service, their son R-J moved everyone to tears as he paid a heartfelt tribute to his father: “My best friend. My daddy. I love you so much. You were a brilliant light and a true inspiration.” He then knelt to kiss the coffin.
As her personal farewell, Dwina read a love poem she had written especially for Robin, titled My Songbird Has Flown. Robin’s children from his first marriage, Melissa and Spencer, were also present to honor their father.
After the ceremony, each mourner was invited to throw a single red rose over the coffin. “He always bought me red roses for my birthday or anniversary,” Dwina recalls, smiling softly. “Though, I wasn’t always sure if they were actually organized by a secretary—he wasn’t really one for celebrating birthdays.”
“I often had to remind him. Those things seemed mundane to him; his mind was always lost in creation.”
Dwina shares that her belief in reincarnation and meditation have helped her find solace amidst the grief. She now sleeps with Robin’s teddy bear, a source of great comfort. “I gave it to him long ago and had his initials embroidered on its little blue shirt.”
Throughout their home, photographs, books, and statues collected during their travels stand as reminders of their life together.
“I have had a wonderful life, a wonderful love,” she reflects. “It was a true sharing. There is something profound about those who create—especially someone who has touched millions. Such a person must be connected to the divine.”
“What kind of incredible karma allows someone to move the world like that? I was incredibly fortunate to share that with him. It has touched me deeply.”
“I am creative too, having written novels and produced artwork, but during the years with Robin, I never pursued them. That is something I want to do now—to help me adjust to life and the future, sadly without him.”
“I am eternally proud of my husband and all that he achieved. And I am deeply honored to have shared my life with him.”