The Absolutely Fabulous actress will be celebrating her 80th birthday in just days, on May 1. Last year, she insisted she had no plans to retire, saying “I’ll be here when I’m 90 – as long as I can speak”.
However, she has now admitted she thinks about dying, telling Radio Times: “I think about dying every day because I think about living every day and I can’t see them as separate.
“It seems to me completely normal to be born, to live and to die. It doesn’t seem like an insult or a loss or tragedy, it’s just what happens.
“I don’t think we should see it as this colossal enemy. I’ve thought it would be nice to see it as a friend who’s waiting around and you never know when the friend is going to come through the door, so you mustn’t be cross or sad about it.
“You hope it won’t be now, because you have lots to do and things you still want to see, but maybe you get to the time when you feel bloody awful and alone and hurting all the time and then you might think, ‘I’d like to go now.’”
Dame Joanna also referenced her friend Dame Esther Rantzen, who has terminal cancer, and has been campaigning in support of the Assisted Dying Bill, having previously stated that she had joined the Dignitas assisted dying clinic in Switzerland.
Dame Joanna admitted she would consider it a “nice thing” for some people, adding: “I’d love to have it in the arsenal, should the time come that I just go, ‘This is too bloody awful’.
“It would be so nice not to have my family sent to prison for helping me go.”
She went on to say she’s “always longed” to be older, adding that she “shall clearly make 90” and “can’t wait”.
The New Avengers star has previously echoed those sentiments about assisted dying, saying she would consider voluntary euthanasia if she were at a point where she couldn’t look after herself.
When asked about the bill, which was passed by MPs last year but stalled in the House of Lords, she told Saga magazine: “People are terribly anxious about it and think one may be coerced (into voluntary euthanasia).
“But I’m saying this now when nobody’s coercing me, don’t let me turn into somebody who doesn’t recognise the people I love most, where I’m having a miserable time.”
She added: “When I get to the stage where I can’t speak and have to be fed, that won’t be me any more, and that’s when I wouldn’t mind saying farewell.”
