Eight Weeks Changed Everything: The Voice UK Star Dean Franklin Dead at 36

The star, who appeared on the show in 2016 and was mentored by Paloma Faith, announced last month he was starting chemo, but just weeks later has passed away.

Your info will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy

A man with a shaved head and beard, wearing a white shirt and bracelets, has a medical device taped to his arm and yellow discoloration under his eyes.
Dean Franklin, 36, died following a brief cancer battle
 

A man in a fedora, denim jacket, and striped shirt singing into a microphone on stage.
Dean appearing on the ITV hit show The Voice
 

Paloma Faith smiling and clapping with hands pressed together while sitting in a red chair.
Hit singer Paloma Faith after turning her chair for Dean
 

NINTCHDBPICT001057667874
Dean was tragically struck down by oesophageal cancerCredit: instagram
Dean’s family said in a Facebook post: “I never wanted to share this news with you all so soon…

“As a family we are truly heartbroken to announce that our precious boy who fought so courageously over 8 weeks and 3 days passed over at 21.39pm last night…

“He was surrounded by love. I have been getting MSG’s from people this morning and wanted as his ma to manifest my son’s courage to share with you all…

“As a family we will post in more length when we are able. Until then please know that the love you gave to our Dean and all of us has meant so very much.”

READ MORE NEWS

SNAKE TRAGEDY

The Voice star dies aged 26 after being bitten by snake in her sleep

‘BRINGING IT HOME’

Michael Buble gives rare glimpse into his home after leaving The Voice

Dean, from Finsbury Park, North London, had started a GoFundMe page in January to help create financial security for his family, including his daughter.

He said he’d recently been diagnosed with stage 4 oesophageal cancer, adding he was starting chemo.

He explained: “While this treatment is not curative, it gives me time and the possibility of further options, and I have chosen to go ahead with it…

“Right now, my focus is on treatment, managing pain, and holding on to the parts of life that matter most to me, especially music and my family…

“That name should be dead… so why is Blackridge standing in my unit?” They mocked the new girl — until they saw the DEVGRU trident on her arm… and realized she wasn’t there to fit in. She was there to expose a betrayal that could trigger a nuclear trap.  The forward base near the Belarus border wasn’t built for drama. It was steel walls, mud-soaked boots, and radios hissing through cold dawns. Task Unit Seven didn’t get surprises.  Until she stepped off the transport.  Small. Controlled. Eyes that scanned exits before faces.  “Name,” Captain Owen Strickland demanded after reading the transfer sheet twice.  “Petty Officer Talia Blackridge, sir.”  The room shifted.  Thirty-six years earlier, a Blackridge had dragged Strickland out of a kill zone. Three years ago, that same man was declared KIA. Flag folded. Funeral attended. File closed.
“Say your name,” Captain Owen Strickland ordered.  “Petty Officer Talia Blackridge, sir.”  The room shifted.  Strickland had buried a Blackridge once. A man who pulled him out of a kill zone and was declared KIA years later. Memorial attended. Flag folded. Case closed.  Except now his last name was standing in front of him. Alive. Young. Impossible.  The team didn’t buy it. They mocked her. Tested her. Threw her into a 12-hour armory breakdown meant to break anyone.  She finished it flawlessly.  And when her sleeve shifted, they saw it.  The trident.  DEVGRU.  SEAL Team Six.  Silence swallowed the room.  Strickland stepped closer — and that’s when she said it.  “I’m not here to impress you. I’m here to find out who betrayed my father.”
I begged my landlord for mercy… and accidentally sent the message to a billionaire CEO. The next reply changed my life — and took me to Dubai as his “fiancée.”  I hadn’t eaten in two days.  My rent was overdue. My cupboard was empty. Even the salt was gone. So I did what pride-hungry people eventually do — I typed a desperate message.  Please don’t throw me out. I’m still job hunting. I promise I’ll pay. God will bless you.  I hit send.  Then I looked at the number.  It wasn’t my landlord.  It was a stranger.  I almost died of shame.  Across the city, Damalair Adabio — billionaire, CEO, allergic to nonsense — stepped out of his marble bathroom and opened my message.
She texted her landlord begging not to be thrown out… and accidentally sent it to a billionaire CEO instead. Minutes later, he offered her $7 MILLION to be his fake fiancée on a Dubai trip — and what happened that night changed everything.  Ouchi hadn’t eaten since yesterday. She stood barefoot in her tiny one-room apartment, holding an empty pot like proof that life had officially humbled her. No rice. No beans. No noodles. Even the salt had “relocated.”  Then her landlord called.  Final warning. Pay this week — or get out.  Desperate, fighting tears, she typed a long message begging for more time. She poured in everything — her degree, her job search, her faith, her pride.  She hit send.  And froze.  Wrong number.  Not her landlord.  A complete stranger.  She had just begged someone she didn’t know for mercy.  Across the city, billionaire CEO Damalair Adabio stepped out of a marble bathroom into a home that screamed wealth. Betrayed by his PA. Pressured by investors. Invited to a high-stakes Dubai business summit where every powerful man would show up with a stunning partner on his arm.  His phone buzzed.  He read her message once.  Then again.  It wasn’t manipulation. It wasn’t a scam pitch.  It was raw. Embarrassingly real.  “Wrong number,” he muttered… then paused. “Or maybe perfect timing.”
The avalanche hit without warning — white, violent, unstoppable. When it settled, rifles were missing. Packs were gone. And Claire was nowhere to be found.  They dug.  They found scraps of her gear.  Then their team leader made the call no one wants to make: “She’s dead. We move.”  They pulled out with wounded men and a storm closing in — leaving their medic behind.  But Claire wasn’t dead.  She woke up buried in ice, shoulder shattered, air running out. No radio. No weapon. Just darkness and pressure and the memory of one rule from survival school: panic kills faster than cold.  She dug with numb hands until she broke through into a full Arctic storm.  And that’s when she heard it.  Gunfire.  Her Rangers were still out there — taking contact, without their medic.  What she did next is the part they don’t put in the official report.  Because hours later, through the whiteout, a single figure emerged from the storm…  Carrying four Rangers.
“She’s dead.” They left the SEAL sniper under ten feet of Alaskan snow and moved on with the mission… Hours later, in the middle of a whiteout, she walked back into the fight — carrying four Rangers on her shoulders.  November 2018. A Ranger platoon out of Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson lifted into the Brooks Range for a hostage rescue that had to be finished before a blizzard locked the mountains down for days.  Attached to them? A Navy medic — Hospital Corpsman First Class Claire Maddox.  Quiet. Compact. Instantly underestimated.  Some Rangers glanced at her PT scores and made up their minds. The team leader, Staff Sergeant Tyler Kane, kept it professional but distant. “Stay close. Don’t slow us down.”  Claire didn’t argue. She checked radios. Tourniquets. Chest seals. IV warmers. Cold-weather meds. She studied wind angles and ridgelines the way other people read street signs.  Insertion was clean.  The mountain wasn’t.  They moved across a knife-edge locals called Devil’s Spine when visibility collapsed into gray static. Then came the sound no one forgets — a deep, hollow crack above them.
Naval Station Norfolk was silent except for the click of metal around Lieutenant Kara Wynn’s wrists.  The charge? Abandoning her overwatch position during an operation near Kandahar. Prosecutors claimed she “froze.” That because she didn’t fire, three Marines died.  The headlines were already brutal: Female SEAL cracks under pressure.  In dress whites, Kara didn’t flinch when they called her a coward. Didn’t react when they hinted her record was exaggerated. She just sat there, posture perfect, as the bailiff locked the cuffs.  “Standard procedure,” the judge said.  The prosecutor smirked.  Then the courtroom doors opened.  Not a clerk. Not a late observer.  A four-star admiral.