Martin Kemp was taken to the hospital after a chainsaw accident at his home in Hertfordshire, his son, Roman Kemp, has revealed. Appearing on his hit podcast, You About?, with Tom Grennan, the 32-year-old explained that last Friday, he'd received a worrying text message from his dad on their family WhatsApp group.
After Tom asked, "What the hell has happened to your dad's fingers? Because that looks like a horror film," Roman recalled what happened. "Friday night, I have just finished work, I look at my phone and my dad has sent a picture of his hand. All his fingers are heavily strapped up, and all he writes underneath in the family WhatsApp group is 'Yep...Chainsaw!!!'"
Noting that both he and his sister, Harley Moon Kemp were quick to reply, Roman noted that Martin took a while to get back to either of them. "He goes: 'Oh, there was a bit of a branch that we wanted chopping down, so I went and got a chainsaw,'" Roman continued.
"So that is my first issue. Why are you handling a chainsaw? He is 65. He has got more than enough dough, get a professional in. You can't be doing that." Clarifying that Martin had injured his hand by mistakenly picking up the chainsaw by the blade, Roman quipped that his dad was "lucky" that he's not "handless".
"Your mum would be fuming," Tom said of Martin's wife, Shirlie Kemp. "Yes, because he can't play guitar," Roman joked.
While Martin was forced to go to the hospital, the Spandau Ballet star appears to be recovering just fine, and days after injuring his hand, he was able to return with his Ultimate 80s DJ set a day later, which he performed at the De Valence Pavilion in Tenby on Saturday, 18 October.
The Kemps' love of DIY
Martin and his wife, Shirlie, frequently post about their DIY endeavours after purchasing a Victorian property in 2021, which they've spent years renovating from the inside out. "I love change. I could redecorate the house every year," Shirlie told HELLO! in an exclusive interview last November. "It reminds me of when you walk past a store like Liberty, Selfridges or Harrods and you look in the shop window and you think, 'Oh, it's changed!' and I've always felt that a bit kind of about decorating.
"Martin's always out in the garden. He's always cleaning like cutting the grass, cutting the hedges. I would change everything," continued Shirlie. More recently, the duo have been focusing on their outdoor space, noting that they'd converted the former pig shed into an office, and knocked down the "derelict" greenhouse, which Shirlie admitted she had hoped to restore to its former glory.
Back in August, Martin and Shirlie were particularly surprised when they uncovered a World War Two bomb shelter in their garden. Addressing fans on Instagram, Shirlie said: "We were in the garden this morning, apple picking and making a mess, and one of our gardeners, Jeff, was leafblowing everywhere.
"I noticed this patch in the garden that was all drying out. As he was blowing all the leaves away, all the grass that's now turned to moss was coming away, and then we saw a drain lid that we'd never seen before. When we opened it, we thought, 'Oh no, maybe it's just another drain, but it's not in use.' But it's an old bomb shelter or an Anderson shelter," she revealed.