Jonathan Cainer

Early life

Cainer was born to a Jewish family and grew up in Surbiton (then in Surrey), one of six children of David who worked at Barclays Bank and Ruth who was a medical secretary and spiritual healer. Aged 13, he followed his mother to Leeds where he attended Allerton Grange School which he left at 15 without qualifications. He then worked as a petrol pump attendant, school nursery assistant and factory worker. He also played bass guitar in a band called Strange Cloud, attended rock festivals and helped to relaunch the 1960s underground newspaper International Times. He then managed a nightclub on the outskirts of Los Angeles. and a cookbook, The Junk Food Vegetarian.

In 1986, when Eddie Shah launched Today, Cainer was approached once more to write a daily Sun sign column. Assured that he would also have the chance to introduce his readers to the deeper side of his subject, Cainer took the post, and his column proved a great success. He left Today in January 1992 and joined the Daily Mail in December of the same year. His Times obituary said that he was "arguably the only hippy ever to write a leading column for the Daily Mail". Cainer disliked the editorial stances of the Daily Mail, he "never once agreed with an editorial they have published". Cainer's book, Cosmic Ordering, was published in 2006. He made frequent appearances as a pundit on British TV and radio stations, whenever astrology was in the news. At the Mail, he was the highest paid journalist in Great Britain.

Cainer had six children. In the 1990s his first wife was killed suddenly in a car crash leaving him alone to care for his young children. On 2 May 2016 he was found dead in his home office by his wife Sue, of a suspected heart attack. An inquest found that he had taken cocaine shortly before his death, the cardiotoxic effects of which may have contributed to his heart attack. An open verdict was returned. Following his death, his nephew Oscar Cainer, whom Jonathan trained as his successor, took over his newspaper column and astrology website.