ATHENS – The body of missing British TV presenter and writer Dr Michael Mosley was found on a Greek island on Sunday morning after a days-long search, his family said.
Mosley, who it disappeared on the island of Symi on Wednesday afternoon, was spotted among rocks on a rugged stretch of coast by a group on a boat that included the local mayor and journalists.
Mosley’s wife said her husband took a wrong turn during a walk and passed out just before reaching a marina in a place where his body could not be easily seen.
“Michael was an adventurous man, which is part of what made him so special,” Dr. Clare Bailey Mosley said in a statement. “It is devastating to have lost Michael, my wonderful, funny, kind and brilliant husband. We have had an incredibly lucky life together. We loved each other very much and were very happy together.”
Mosley, 67, was well known in Britain for his many BBC programmes, regular appearances on television and radio and his column in the Daily Mail newspaper. He was known outside the UK for his 2013 book “The Fast Diet”, which he co-authored with journalist Mimi Spencer. The book proposed the so-called “5:2 diet,” which promised to help people lose weight quickly by minimizing calorie intake two days a week and eating healthily the other five.
He later introduced a rapid weight loss program and made several films about diet and exercise.
Mosley often pushed his body to extremes to see the effects of his diets and also lived with tapeworms in his gut for six weeks for the BBC documentary “Infested! Living with parasites.”
Even before the identity of the body was confirmed, tributes poured in for Mosley.
“In person, he was the kind of figure you would see on television: immediately likable, genuinely funny, enthusiastic, he had an innate zest for life and was always very generous with his time,” said his co-author Spencer. BBC Radio 4. “He never blew the trumpet, he was quite a humble person.”
Tom Watson, former deputy leader of the British Labor Party, called Mosley a hero and said he lost almost 100 pounds by following one of the doctor’s diet books.
“It’s hard to describe how upset I am by this news,” Watson said on social media platform X. “Through courageous, science-based journalism, Michael Mosley has helped thousands of people get well and healthy. I’m one of them.”
Saleyha Ahsan, who co-hosted “Trust Me, I’m A Doctor,” said Mosley had a talent for putting people at ease and explaining science to a general audience, “not just a niche scientific audience.” , but for everyone.”
“Michael is a national treasure and he is very personal,” Ahsan told the BBC.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver said Mosley’s research and TV shows have served the public well and changed the conversation about health issues.
“What a wonderfully sweet, kind and gentle man he was,” Oliver said on Instagram.
Clare Bailey Mosley thanked the people of the island of Symi, who she said worked tirelessly to find him.
“Some of these people on the island, who had never heard of Michael, worked from dawn to dusk without being asked,” she said. “My family and I have been extremely comforted by the outpouring of love from people all over the world. It’s clear that Michael meant a lot to so many of you.”
Lefteris Papakalodoukas, the island’s mayor, told the Associated Press that he was on a boat with journalists when they saw a body about 20 meters above the beach at Agia Marina. He said Mosley was lying face down next to a fence.
“We zoomed in on the cameras and saw it was him,” he said.
Ilias Tsavaris, manager of the marina bar, said he walked up the slope after receiving a call from the boat asking him to confirm the sighting.
“When I went up, I saw something that looked like a body,” he said. “You don’t see a dead body every day, it’s not a war zone, it’s summer, you should have fun and swim.”
As officers recovered Mosley’s body, one of them fell down the hillside and had to be carried out on a stretcher, local media reported. The body will be taken to the neighboring island of Rhodes for an autopsy.
Mosley had four children with his wife, who is also an author and health columnist.
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Associated Press writer Brian Melley contributed to this report from London.
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