Celebrity chef and television presenter Parveen Ashraf is easing her way back into professional life following the devastating death of her husband, who was killed during a robbery.
Ashraf—known as “Parveen the Spice Queen”—opened up about the “personal tragedy” in a recent Instagram post, telling fans she knows husband Qamar Ashraf wouldn’t want her to “wallow in self-pity.”
“I have been away for a while, probably about a year, and wanted to come and say I think I’m ready to come back to work, whatever that means,” she said as she addressed her followers. “I’m not even sure yet.”
Ashraf, 61, best known for fronting the ITV cooking programme Parveen’s Indian Kitchen in 2019, went on to explain why she feels the time has come to take tentative steps back into work.
“I had a personal tragedy and I lost my husband about six months ago,” she said. “And those that have lost somebody, you know how painful this is, but I feel that he wouldn’t want me to wallow in self-pity, so I’m gonna try and get back to work.”
In the caption accompanying the video, Ashraf described the post as her “first step” toward re-entering public life while still navigating her grief.
“The pain of losing someone you love is all consuming and it’s easy to just let the grief take over,” she wrote, “however for the sake of my own sanity, I am hoping to get back to work soon.”
Ashraf had first revealed the circumstances of her husband’s death in a Dec. 12 Facebook post, telling supporters that her family had been left “heartbroken.”
“My husband of 38 years and the father of my 3 children was taken from us tragically and suddenly a few weeks ago,” she wrote at the time. “He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and was killed during a robbery in Ghana.”
She described her husband as a “unique, intelligent, handsome, complicated, deep quiet man with a dry sense of humour and powerful aura.”
In a follow up post on Instagram, Ashraf thanked her fans for their support and shared a carousel of images of the couple enjoying life together, starting with a wedding photo.
“I left my parents home and followed him to London,” she captioned the post. “He got a contract in Leeds, so I and my 2 toddlers followed him.”
She continued to follow him as he moved to Peterborough and then Ghana.
“Now he is in a different realm and I will follow him there too,” she said. “Rest in peace my darling handsome, stubborn, whitty (sic), intelligent husband.”
