Depeche Mode star Vince Clarke’s wife Tracy Hurley Martin dies from stomach cancer aged 53
After quietly battling the illness for years, Depeche Mode and Erasure icon Vince Clarke’s wife Tracy Hurley Martin has died from stomach cancer.
Depeche Mode icon Vince Clarke’s wife Tracy Hurley Martin has died from stomach cancer.
The synth player’s partner – who had an 18-year-old son called Oscar with the musician – passed away aged 53 after battling her illness for years and undergoing a hysterectomy in 2022.
Erasure co-founder Andy Bell, 59, with whom Vince founded the smash 1980s band, confirmed the news of her death on social media, saying: “There are no words. My heart, my soul, and all of my love goes to Vincent and Oscar, Tonya, Michael and Isabelle and all of Tracy’s family and friends.”
Vince is yet to publicly comment on his loss.
He lived with Tracy in a house in Manhattan, and despite staying silent so far on her passing he opened up about her health fight in a 2023 interview The Quietus.
Vince said about his music helping him through his pain at seeing Tracy ill: “Something like this does affect everything that you do, you know. It does affect your life. And I think it’s affected the way that I listen to, and look to, music.
“Doing this kind of music in particular is very therapeutic. It’s helped me to switch off all of the other stuff and just think about sounds.
“Even though it’s not even me that is going through something directly. You know, I’m just a carer.”
Art afficionado Tracy occasionally referenced her illness on social media, and in 2022 thanked her family for their support, saying: “I’m not only thankful for the treatment but for the around the clock care and unwavering support my husband and sister have provided me. I tear up just writing how much I love them both.
“I have reached a depth of love for all of you that I had no idea existed.”
She also said on X: “When you have incurable cancer the words Last Christmas take on a totally different meaning.”
Tracy was a renowned filmmaker, publicist and museum curator who co-founded the now closed Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn.
The not-for-profit project spotlighted forgotten histories and themes of nature, death and society, as well as anatomy, medicine and curiosities.
