Author: Prince, Malcolm

Radio

Published on 6 November 2025 by HarperCollins Publishers (HarperCollins) in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 320 pages, 20 col plates (8pp)
242 x 163 x 33 | 546g

He was a campaigner, a political advocate, and a trailblazer. But most of all, he was a friend. And I’d like to share that person with you.

It’s more than two years since the much-loved entertainer, broadcaster and national treasure Paul O’Grady died, and yet his voice still echoes in laughter, in memory, in the unshakeable affection of millions.

In this deeply personal and revealing biography, Paul’s longtime collaborator Malcolm Prince draws on two decades of friendship and hours of private recordings to tell the story of the man behind the icon: the sharp-witted, fiercely loyal, irrepressibly funny, and deeply private individual, known to his close friends as Savage’ and to the public, in various guises, as the prime time TV star, the nation’s dog-loving agony uncle, and a Sunday afternoon radio companion. Malcolm revisits the stages Paul made his own, from the Royal Vauxhall Tavern to the London Palladium; the moments that shaped him; and draws on brand-new interviews with the people who knew him best, including his daughter and grandchildren.

This is a portrait not just of a gifted entertainer, but of a complex, fiercely loyal, and endlessly curious man, reflecting on a friendship built on shared laughter, private rants, righteous fury, long phone calls, and a healthy dose of gossip and on a professional legacy that still feels astonishing in its range and resonance.

Packed with warmth, humour and never-before-heard stories, NOT THE SAME WITHOUT YOU captures the full measure of a man who defied convention, challenged institutions, made mischief and made us all feel like we were his best pal.