Bob Hawke reveals serious illness almost killed him in 2015

Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke has revealed he almost died as a result of a health condition two years ago.

In an interview with The Australian to be published tomorrow, Mr Hawke, 88, will discuss the unnamed illness that left him “very crook”.

“They tell me I could have been on the way,” Mr Hawke said.

“He was just so close to death,” Mr Hawke’s wife Blanche d’Alpuget added.

“It was awful.”

The interview reportedly also covers Mr Hawke’s views on a range of subjects, from current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, to monogamy, to Mr Hawke’s “despair” as a father, to Ms d’Alpuget’s struggle with suicidal and homicidal thoughts in the early stages of their love affair.

“I went through that dark night of the soul when we broke up and I came out the other side. I got over it,” Ms d’Alpuget told the newspaper.

Mr Hawke, who served as Australia’s prime minister from 1983 to 1991, famously divorced then-wife Hazel and married Ms d’Alpuget in 1995.

In November 1984, Mr Hawke achieved the highest approval rating ever – 75 percent. He is closely followed by Kevin Rudd at 74 percent in March 2009.

In 2016 Mr Hawke expressed his support for the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia and revealed an existing “understanding” with Ms d’Alpuget to end his life in the event he “lost my marbles”