Rove McManus has shared a heartfelt tribute to his late wife, Belinda Emmett, to mark 20 years since her death.<\/p>\n
In a touching post shared overnight, the comedian and TV personality shared a throwback video of the actress on Instagram<\/a> as he remembered her two decades on from when she sadly died of cancer, aged just 32. <\/p>\n Be the first to know when news breaks. Download our new app<\/a><\/p>\n \u201c20 years ago today a light went out. Remembering Belinda Emmett 12\/4\/1974 \u2013 11\/11\/2006,\u201d the 52-year-old captioned the footage of the beloved Home And Away actress.<\/p>\n In the moment captured on his then-chat show Rove Live, McManus gave Emmett the green light to talk about his atrocious outfit on their first date back in 1999, one year after she was first diagnosed with breast cancer. <\/p>\n \u201cDo you seriously want me to do that?\u201d she asked him before spilling details of their first date. \u201cThis is the first time we\u2019d actually been out and we met at a function, so Rove was all dressed in his nice suit and I thought, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s a bit of a style master.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnyway, he rocks up to the door [on the first date] and I opened the door and he had this T-shirt on with these jeans and his T-shirt tucked into his jeans, but he had them pulled up so damn high,\u201d she recalled. <\/p>\n \u201cI was just like, \u2018Oh no, I really liked this guy. I reckon I can work with it, we can work around it, so it\u2019s OK. He\u2019s got potential, you\u2019ve got to just work around it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n They indeed made it work and became one of Australia\u2019s most loved couples at the time. After five years of dating, they announced their engagement in 2004 and were married the following year in an intimate ceremony at Mary Immaculate Church in Sydney\u2019s Waverley.<\/p>\n Sadly, after just one year of marriage, Emmett would loss her eight-year battle with cancer.<\/p>\n In the years after her death, McManus \u2013 who was arguably Australia\u2019s most famous TV host at the time \u2013 admitted it was hard to go from the funny man on TV to the guy whose wife had just died. <\/p>\n \u201cAt the time, it was difficult because you\u2019re trying to juggle what you\u2019re dealing with in life with what you\u2019re dealing with at work. And again, having to do promotion which is part of the job as people want to know what you\u2019re doing,\u201d he said on The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show<\/a> podcast 2023. <\/p>\n \u201cBut then people want to know what\u2019s happening at home. It\u2019s none of your business what\u2019s happening at home. I\u2019m not here to talk about what\u2019s happening at home. If you want to know, you need to be a friend of mine. But if you\u2019re a stranger on the street, you\u2019ll get, \u2018Fine, it\u2019s good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n McManus is now married to actress Tasma Walton, who in an unexpected twist was the one who introduced him to Emmett at the opening of Sydney\u2019s Fox Studios in 1999. <\/p>\n \u201cWe were all at a Fox Studios opening and I had obviously worked with Rove on his show and worked with Belinda, [and I] thought they would be an interesting couple and introduced them,\u201d Walton later told New Idea magazine<\/a> in 2015.<\/p>\n Walton, 53, revealed she was the one who proposed to McManus <\/a>in 2009 after he arrived home from an overseas trip.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d done this little painting that said \u2018Marry me?\u2019 on it and he said, \u2018You\u2019ve got to ask me properly\u2019 and I was like \u2018I can\u2019t, I can\u2019t, just marry me would ya!\u201d she shared on Show + Tell\u2019s Monty Diamond<\/a> in 2014. \u201cIt was really, really unromantic.\u201d<\/p>\n McManus and Walton share one child, daughter Ruby, who was born in 2013.<\/p>\n