British singer Chris Rea, known for hits including "Driving Home For Christmas", has died at the age of 74, a spokesperson for his family said.
"It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of our beloved Chris," his wife and two daughters shared in a statement on December 22, 2025. "He passed away peacefully in hospital earlier today following a short illness, surrounded by his family."
© Getty"Driving Home For Christmas" has become regarded as a standard Christmas hit, played alongside other seasonal staples like Mariah Carey’s "All I Want For Christmas Is You" and "Last Christmas" by Wham! and was Chris' most famous song, although it was written originally for Van Morrison.
Instead, Chris released it in 1986 but famously only played it live for the first time in December 2014, at a concert at Hammersmith Apollo.
"I wrote "Driving Home For Christmas" in 1978, and it sat on the shelf for eight years, until someone at my record label, Magnet, put it on the B-side of my single, "Hello Friend" Then a DJ picked up on it, and started playing it instead of "Hello Friend" – and I still don’t know how or why they did that," he recently told British newspaper Daily Express.
The song features in this year’s Marks & Spencers Food Christmas advert which sees British comedian Dawn French sing along to the single in her car.
"It’s got a story everyone can relate to: you’re stuck in traffic, when all you want to do is to get home and be with your loved ones. Everyone in the country is doing the same thing at the same time," he said of its appeal, almost five decades on.
“It’s a frustrating song, but it’s also hopeful and comforting. It’s funny, because I’d just been banned from driving when I wrote it. But I was feeling good at the time too, and people say they can hear that infectious feel-good mood when they hear it.”
© RedfernsThe performance in 2014 was also one of the only times he played the song live, as in 2016, he suffered a stroke, which reduced the movement in his arms and fingers. He recovered to tour again in 2017 but collapsed on stage during his performance in Oxford and hasn’t performed in public since.
Instead, Chris released it in 1986 but famously only played it live for the first time in December 2014, at a concert at Hammersmith Apollo. It was also to be one of the only times he played the song live, as in 2016, he suffered a stroke, which reduced the movement in his arms and fingers. He recovered to tour again in 2017 but collapsed on stage during his performance in Oxford and hasn’t performed in public since.
Chris recorded 25 studio albums over his long career, but studied to become a journalist. His debut album Whatever Happened To Benny Santini? was released in 1978 but it was in the mid-1980s that his fame soared with hits such as "Fool (If You Think It’s Over)", "Let’s Dance," and "The Road To Hell."
© Getty"Fool (If You Think It’s Over)" was nominated for a Grammy.
His 1989 album Road To Hell was a commercial success, and made him one of the biggest solo stars in the UK at the time, with Road To Hell and the follow-up Auberge going to number one in the UK.
© Getty ImagesChris, born in 1951, married his childhood sweetheart in 1968, and they welcomed two daughters, Josephine, born 16 September 1983, and Julia Christina, born 18 March 1989.
In 1994 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and underwent a life-saving operation to remove his pancreas, gallbladder, and a portion of his liver. The procedure left him with Type 1 diabetes.
But the diagnosis also left him with depression, and in a 2014 interview he said: “Once they’ve taken your pancreas away, the rest of your life is dealing with not having a pancreas, which is pretty awful sometimes, but I’m still here."
In recent years, he returned to his roots with jazzy blues music, once sharing that what got him through his illness "was the thought of leaving a record that my two teenage daughters could say, 'That’s what Papa did – not the pop stuff, but the blues music. That’s what he was about'."
He credited his family with saving him after the surgery and his bouts of depression, sharing: "It’s music and family with me. I’m only one of four, that’s how I am. I’m 25% of a unit. It’s always been that wa, and we like it that way. In between that there’s music."
