12 March 2024 , 20:52
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Comedian Adam Hills has shared the devastating loss of a loved one that inspired him to take part in this years’ Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer.
The 53-year-old Australian star was left heartbroken in 2013 when his father passed away following a battle against cancer and after being diagnosed with leukaemia. This year, Adam will be featuring alongside a string of other stars for the celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off on Channel 4 - with dancer Oti Mabuse, singer Paloma Faith and actor Danny Dyer among the others taking part.
The new season of the show will be kicking off on Sunday 17 March on Channel 4 at 7:40pm and will be raising awareness for the fight against cancer as well as the main telethon show that is due to air on Friday 13 September. Ahead of his involvement on Bake Off, Adam has been opening up about his family’s tragic involvement with cancer
The disease took the star’s father from him - and he hopes that continued fundraising and research will help uncover new ways to battle the disease and find cures. He says he wants other families to avoid seeing loved ones in pain and suffering while battling the disease.
Adam is one of the many stars taking part in the 2024 season of The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer (PA)He told Radio Times: "My dad was about 55 when he had stomach cancer. He went through chemo, radiotherapy, and had a stem cell transplant, then got leukaemia at 69 and had a bone marrow transplant. His body just couldn’t take it.
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"Wouldn’t it be amazing to raise more money so the treatment isn’t quite as horrible or, in my dad’s case, doesn’t end up killing you?" Adam has discussed the loss of his father previously.
Speaking during the main Stand Up To Cancer show back in 2021, he shared a story about the last conversation he had with his father. He said: "My family have a thing, whether it's with my kids or with my parents, we say goodbye to each other at the end of the get-together and you always end on a high note and go [high-pitched beep sound]. When my dad was going through cancer treatment, we kept doing it and the last time I saw him in intensive care being treated for leukaemia we still did it."
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Adam continued: "Even leaving him in intensive care I was like, 'We don't know if you're gonna get through this but we're going to give it a good shot' and I kinda looked around and went, 'Oh bugger it [makes high-pitched beep sound]. And even then, in those moments, at that moment my dad still managed to look at me and go beep. Technically that's the last thing he ever said to me and I love that." He concluded at the time: "Sometimes, just a little giggle can mean a lot," he concluded.
Adam previously appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain where he spoke about his involvement in the Stand Up To Cancer project. He urged the public to book in appointments to get checked after cancer cases surged following the pandemic.
He said: “Covid has been cancer’s best friend. They’ve been working together. You know yourself, people haven’t been going for routine check ups, they haven’t been getting the treatments that they needed, so I think this year more than ever, Stand Up To Cancer is back and it needs to be back because we need to take up the fight again.”
Asked wha the main target of the campaign was, Adam said: “[The focus of the campaign] is the reminder that a lot of people missed just regular check ups. So not even people who knew they had cancer, cancer wasn’t being detected in people because they weren’t getting their check ups. So it’s a double barrelled approach. It’s a reminder of that and that’s why we need the money to come in. But also there’s a lot of science involved… There seems to be a lot of people not trusting science in the last two years and we want to address that balance.”
The Macmillan Support Line offers confidential support to people living with cancer and their loved ones. If you need to talk, call us on 0808 808 0000.