“I’m drifting, broken, shell shocked, just watching one foot fall in front of the other”: Gary Numan opens up about his brother’s sudden death

Gary Numan has revealed what the ‘worst ever news’ he received on Saturday was – his younger brother collapsed and died that morning, just hours after the siblings had spent the evening catching up.

He has said that he will dedicate the rest of his current UK tour to his brother’s memory.

Numan had broken down at a gig on Saturday night and had to be consoled on stage by his wife. He had told his audience at the Birmingham O2 Academy that it had been the “worst news ever”.

Since then, he has taken to Instagram and explained what happened. He began: "The last two days have been the hardest of my life. This is why.”

"My brother John died suddenly in the early hours of Saturday morning in Leeds, he was just 60 years old. He had spent the evening with me at my Telekon show, catching up, swapping stories... just as much as we could squeeze in in the time we had.”

He continued: "We were just enjoying being together again as we see each other so rarely these days. We talked for hours before and after the show but, eventually, I had to leave as we had another show in Birmingham later that night.”

"I hugged him at the door of our tour bus, I think it was about 12:20 am, asked him how far he had to walk to get to his car (I always worried about him walking the streets at night), it was not far apparently, we said goodbye and I watched him walk away.”

"Sadly he never made it to his car, betrayed by his own heart. It will haunt me forever that we may have driven off not knowing that he was lying in a rainy street just yards away. Luckily a kind person saw him and called an ambulance, but it was too late."

The 67 year old said he had “no capacity" to make decisions of any kind at present. “I’m drifting, broken, shell shocked, just watching one foot fall in front of the other. The emotion overwhelms and then backs away, it screams and then whispers."

Numan said that for the moment, he is continuing with his current Telekon tour on the advice of his father and sister-in-law. "This is the worst moment of my life and I have no idea what to do, other than to continue doing the only thing I know how to do, the thing John was always so proud of.”

"He loved Telekon. He was only 15 when I made it. So this tour is no longer a celebration of an album, it’s a tribute to John, my brother, the best brother a man could ever have."