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Former Death In Paradise star Kris Marshall has broken his collarbone in two places after suffering a freak accident during his latest skiing holiday.
The actor, best known for his starring role as DI Humphrey Goodman in the BBC police drama, confirmed the double break while talking to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio UK on Monday.
Arriving with his arm in a sling, Marshall, 53, explained: ‘It’s a slight skiing mishap, which is probably the most middle class thing I’ve ever said in my life.
‘Broken collarbone, two places. I ski a lot, so this is my first skiing injury ever.’
Marshall’s recent accident comes almost two decades after he was rushed to hospital following a car accident in Somerset.
The actor was thrown twelve feet in the air after being struck by a car, leaving him hospitalised at nearby Bristol Infirmary with head injuries and a collapsed lung.
Kris Marshall confirmed he broke his collarbone in two places during a skiing accident while talking to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio UK on Monday
‘So I had an accident in Bristol about twenty, nearly twenty years ago, got hit by a car,’ he told Evans. ‘Yeah these things sort of happen to me, I don’t know why.’
Already a household name through his breakout role as Nick Harper in BBC sitcom My Family, Marshall was preparing for West End play Fat Pig when the accident occured.
But his four week hospitalisation ended on a positive note, with the actor receiving a get well card from his beloved Aston Villa football club.
‘They sent me this wonderful card signed by all the players and the manager,’ he recalled. ‘It was a superb thing. I go up all the time and see them and I just love Villa.’
Marshall owes his fame to his role as bumbling Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman, first in the hit series Death in Paradise, then in its equally popular spinoff Beyond Paradise.
Marshall took over solving murder mysteries on a Caribbean island in 2014 from Ben Miller, the show’s first star – and he proved such a ratings success they created Beyond Paradise specifically for him, in damp Devon.
Yet when he first auditioned for Death in Paradise in 2013 they turned him down flat.
‘I didn’t even make the final four,’ he told You magazine in 2025. ‘Ten days later they phoned to say, “We’ve made a mistake” and that changed ten years of my life.’
In an age of falling viewing figures, Death in Paradise banks more than seven million viewers an episode. Yet when he arrived in Guadeloupe, where it is shot, its success wasn’t certain.
His predecessor Miller had fled because the heat and the distance from his family – Guadeloupe is more than 4,000 miles from the UK – were too much.
Marshall owes his fame to his role as bumbling Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman, first in the hit series Death in Paradise, then in its equally popular spinoff Beyond Paradise
Marshall’s wife Hannah and son Thomas, by then one, were able to come with him but the island heat really was extreme: it can reach 32C, never dips below 25C and is humid all year round. The police station they filmed in had no air conditioning.
‘It would get to me,’ he said. ‘I threw stuff. Chairs would go flying, and whiteboards, too. It’d get inside your mind.’
These days the drama is a juggernaut and has cemented Marshall’s status as a star.
‘When I joined the show, Guadeloupe was not a massive tourist destination. I went back to shoot a few scenes last year and found Death in Paradise bus tours.
‘I was having breakfast in the hotel and someone walked past wearing a T-shirt with my face on it. It’s like being Mickey Mouse at Disney World.’
Watch the full interview on TFI Unplugged on Channel 4 this Friday at 11:05pm, on catch up and Virgin Radio UK’s YouTube.
