04 February 2024 , 21:17
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Linda Nolan shared a message of solidarity with fellow cancer sufferers yesterday as an image of her living with hair loss flashed up on both sides of the Atlantic.
The singer was in London to watch the photographs of her and 12 other women who have lost their hair following breast cancer treatment projected onto a huge screen.
Onlookers and supporters cheered as the BOLD exhibition for the Pink Ribbon Foundation lit up Piccadilly Circus and New York’s Times Square to commemorate yesterday’s World Cancer Day.
Linda, 64, who writes a column for the Mirror on living with cancer, has told how she wanted to inspire others grappling with the disease.
She said she travelled down from her home in Blackpool to see it, saying: “I wouldn’t miss it. It was amazing to be part of the exhibition with all the other women who have either lost their hair, or like me, are in stages of regrowth.
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Linda Nolan being projected onto Piccadilly on Friday night (Kelly Reeves Photography)“I’ve always said I was traumatised when I lost my hair. It was such a big deal for me, but this exhibition really reminds us what’s important and that’s support and solidarity.”
The Nolan sister recently told how she had taken back control over her hair loss with the help of her hairdresser friend who “came round and just shaved it. Then I said, ‘Get me a cap, we’re going out for a drink!’”
She added: “People say, ‘You look great. Inside I’m screaming, ‘I just don’t want to lose my hair again!’ I was devastated at losing it.”
The BOLD exhibition featured photos by Caroline Sikkenk of women all over Europe who have lost their hair following chemotherapy or radiation therapy.
The shots have already been exhibited in the US, Italy, Holland, Greece and Belgium.
Nolan photograph was also displayed in New York (Linda Nolan Instagram)Linda was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005. It returned as incurable secondary breast cancer in her hip in 2017 and spread to her liver in 2020, before doctors found two sizable tumours surrounded by smaller ones in her brain last year.
But before Christmas she revealed: “The tumours haven’t grown. In fact, the consultant said these precious words: ‘There’s still some shrinkage’. I mean, I wish around my waist, but I’ll take it. I’ll definitely take it!”
Her husband Brian Hudson and her sister Bernie died from cancer, in 2007 and 2013. Her sister Anne, 73, has also battled the disease.