Celebrity chef Parveen Ashraf, the British television personality known to fans as “Parveen the Spice Queen,” returned to social media on June 26, six months after the killing of her husband. In an Instagram video, the 61-year-old said she felt ready to resume work, though she remained uncertain about what that would entail.
“I had a personal tragedy, and I lost my husband about six months ago,” Ashraf said in the recording. “And those that have lost somebody, you know how painful this is.”
Her husband of 38 years, Qamar Ashraf, was shot and killed in Ghana in late 2025 during a robbery, where he had been living. He was also the father of the couple’s three children.
A Public Return After Months of Silence
After a lengthy absence from her accounts, Ashraf broke her silence with a heartfelt message that opened on a note of uncertainty about her own identity. “Hi everyone, it is Parveen the Spice Queen – but I am not even sure if I am still her,” she said. The video, part explanation and part vow to move forward, drew a wave of encouragement from her following.
Ashraf said she did not want her late husband’s memory to be defined by her sorrow. She believes he would not want her to wallow in self-pity, she explained, and so she intended to try to get back to work and start posting videos and recipes again. In a caption accompanying the post, she described the pain of loss as all-consuming and said that, for the sake of her own sanity, she hoped to return to her career soon. She wrote, “Rest in peace my darling man.”
Days after her return to Instagram, Ashraf said she was “pleasantly surprised” by the outpouring of support she received.
The Loss First Revealed in December
Ashraf initially shared the news of her husband’s death in a Facebook post in December 2025, weeks after he was killed. In the post, which included family photographs, she said that her husband had been taken from them suddenly and had been caught up in a robbery in Ghana.
In that tribute, she remembered Qamar Ashraf as unique, intelligent and handsome, describing him as complicated, deep and quiet with a dry sense of humor and a powerful presence. The response to her announcement reflected the connection she had built with her nearly 30,000 Instagram followers through her cooking videos and recipes.
In a separate Instagram tribute, Ashraf posted a photo montage of the couple’s 38 years together set to the Genesis song “Follow You Follow Me.” She said the song captured their life and described a marriage marked by constant relocation. She had left her parents’ home and accompanied her husband to London, then to Leeds with two toddlers, then to Peterborough with two children and another on the way, and finally to Ghana, leaving her two eldest children in the U.K. “He is now in a different realm and I will follow him there too,” she wrote.
From Home Cook to Television Fixture
Ashraf rose to prominence with the ITV cooking series “Parveen’s Indian Kitchen,” which debuted in 2019. The show features her exploring authentic Indian cooking and highlighting regional recipes from both the U.K. and India. Her warm, approachable style helped establish the program as a platform for a broader career centered on food.
Beyond television, she has authored two cookbooks, “Parveen’s Family Favourites” and “Parveen the Spice Queen,” extending the brand that made her a recognizable name. Her return to the kitchen, she suggested, would be as much about continuing that work as about finding a way through her grief.
The circumstances of Qamar Ashraf’s death, described publicly only through his wife’s own accounts, remain sparse. Ashraf has framed the killing as a random act of violence, telling followers her husband was caught up in a robbery. She has not detailed any investigation or arrests in the case in her public statements.
For now, Ashraf’s message to her audience is one of tentative resolve. Six months on, she has signaled a wish to step back into the public eye, even as she admits she is uncertain what her professional life will look like without the man she followed across cities and continents. Her return, she made clear, is an attempt to honor that partnership rather than to move past it.