Plato Contostavlos, the father of N-Dubz singer Tulisa Contostavlos and keyboard player in the 70s blues band Mungo Jerry, has died.
The 36-year-old singer announced the news in a post shared to Instagram, alongside a photo of herself and her father hugging when she was a child.
“Love you pops, rest in peace. Forever my father’s daughter,” Contostavlos wrote alongside the image on Tuesday, 1 July.
Contostavlos’s bandmate and cousin, Dappy, also shared the news online, posting a video of him and his uncle alongside a white dove emoji.
When Contostavlos shared a broken heart emoji beneath the post, her cousin responded: “I’m so sorry T.”
Plato was part of the band Mungo Jerry, best known for their hit single “In The Summertime”, as well as “Lady Rose” and “Alright, Alright, Alright”.
Last October, Contostavlos told Fearne Cotton on her Happy Place podcast about growing up with a famous father.
“My dad had a little studio in Dollis Hill and he used to bring me there sometimes when he was working,” she said.
“He put me on the mic at the age of five. I was singing [The] Little Mermaid. I just knew there was nothing else I felt passionate about.”
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Meanwhile, last year, she told Paul Brunson on We Need to Talk: “Me and my dad’s relationship has not been a conventional one.
“I would say me and my Dad now we’re just more friends that kind of have an understanding of one another.”
Contostavlos has detailed in the past that Plato left her mother, Anne Byrne, when she was nine. Byrne then became her primary carer when Contostavlos was 11.
Byrne was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in 2007, a mental illness that includes symptoms of both bipolar disorder and Schizophrenia.
In her 2010 documentary Tulisa: My Mum and Me, Contostavlos said: “My dad left home and it triggered one of her episodes.
“One minute she’d look all mournful as if someone had died, the next she’d be angry and aggressive, smashing cupboards and shouting.
“Inevitably, she went into hospital again and I stayed with my mum’s older sister, Louise.”
Contostavlos rose to fame after joining her cousin Dappy’s hip hop group N-Dubz, with their mutual friend Fazer in the 2000s. They went on to enjoy top-10 hits, including “I Need You” and featured on Tinchy Stryder’s “Number 1”.
