08 June 2023 , 22:19
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Former Celebrity Big Brother star Anne Diamond has revealed she has been diagnosed with breast cancer and undergone a double mastectomy.
In an emotionally-charged interview, the 68-year-old presenter confirmed she has been secretly fighting the disease for months after some time away from TV screens.
"I haven't been on a world cruise, which is what I know social media has been saying, ‘oh, she's gone on one of her cruises’, because I'm well known now for loving cruises. It hasn't been a world cruise," Anne explained.
"It's been a fight against breast cancer. That's what it's been. It's been a long journey. And five months later, I'm still not at the end of the journey, but I'm through it enough to come back to work."
Speaking to Dan Wootton on GB News, Anne disclosed how she was told of her diagnosis the same morning she learned via email that she had been awarded her an OBE for her campaigning on cot deaths.
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In 1991, following the death of her third son Sebastian, Anne co-founded a campaign calling for more research into cot death. It's thought Anne's work cut the UK's incidence of cot death down to 300 a year from 2,000.
Anne Diamond has been a regular face on the nation's TV screens for decades (EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS)
The star has confirmed she will return to GB News this weekend after six months off-air (GC Images)The former Loose Women star told Dan: "It was a wonderful moment and that was like 9.30 in the morning. But I knew then, because I'd already seen my GP, that I had to go to a breast cancer screening thing later in the morning. I thought I would just go for a mammogram, and a couple of tests and I'd be free in an hour.
"I spent the entire morning at my local hospital where they did everything, biopsies, X-rays, CT scans, a couple of mammograms, everything, and by lunchtime I was still there. And a lovely lady came with a lanyard around her neck that said MacMillan Cancer Care and I knew then it was serious."
She added: “I don't have any advice for people because I'm still going through it. But I'm well enough to return to work. I had the full works, the full mastectomy. God, this is the first time I've talked about it, so it's quite difficult but I've had the full works. The first operation I had was nine hours long.
“I don't remember it. I was in and out like that, but nine hours of removal and rebuild, that took a lot of getting over and then I had an operation later where they took out lymph nodes as well, just to make sure they can trace the travel, if the cancer has travelled at all to the rest of the body. Luckily I don't think it did.
“I've had a load of radiotherapy, which I found very hard too. So it's been a journey, but I'm not pretending for a minute that I am extraordinary, because I am fully aware that a quarter of women in this country are going through what I've just gone through and I don't have any advice to give. I only have empathy.”
Anne is due to return to GB News this weekend to host Breakfast with Stephen Dixon.
If you have been affected by this story, advice and support can be found at Breast Cancer Support.