TV-am legend Anne Diamond reveals she has been diagnosed with breast cancer and undergone a double mastectomy as she describes ‘a hell of a journey’
- She received the diagnosis the same day she learned she was to receive an OBE
TV legend Anne Diamond has emotionally revealed she has been diagnosed with breast cancer and undergone a double mastectomy.
The 68-year-old fought back the tears as she confirmed she was battling the disease in an interview with GB News last night.
Speaking to Dan Wootton on the channel, she recalled how she was given the news by doctors on the same day she was awarded an OBE and said it had been ‘a hell of a journey’.
Anne, who currently works for GB News, has been off air for almost six months and is still undergoing ‘tough’ treatment for the illness, including radiotherapy.
Despite this she is set to return to work this weekend to host Breakfast with Stephen Dixon on the channel on Saturday.
Anne Diamond revealed she was battling cancer in an interview with Dan Wootton on GB News tonight
Speaking on Dan Wootton Tonight, Anne said it had been a ‘fight’ against the disease, after five months ‘I’m still not at the end of the journey, but I’m through it enough to come back to work’.
The morning TV legend, who rose to fame presenting TV-am from 1983 to 1990 and has also been a regular panellist on The Wright Stuff and Jeremy Vine, was given the devastating diagnosis the same day she was told she was getting an OBE.
READ MORE HERE: How TV-am created a legion of stars
Anne said: ‘It was a wonderful moment [being notified about the OBE] 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.’
The mother-of-five revealed she was still undertaking her ‘tough’ treatment after taking months of work to focus on fighting cancer.
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, pictured with her former husband Mike Hollingsworth, has taken several months of work to fight the disease
The 68-year-old, pictured her with Nick Owen on TV-am in 1985, received her diagnosis on the same day she was told she would be given an OBE
The TV presenter, pictured here operating a VCR in 1984, rose to fame by presenting TV-am in the 80s
Anne was appointed an OBE in the 2023 New Year Honours for her services to public health and charity, namely her campaigning for awareness of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
READ MORE HERE: Anne Diamond recalls the awful day she lost her son to cot death
She became an advocate for awareness after her son Sebastian died of cot death in 1991 and fronted the ‘Back to Sleep’ campaign which urged parents to ensure their babies slept on their backs instead of their fronts.
This has been credited with significantly reducing the number of SIDS cases in Britain from 2,000 to just 300 a year.
Speaking after being awarded the honour, she said: ‘This OBE is literally a crowning achievement to everyone who helped me and upon whose ground-breaking research my campaign was based.
‘This is also testament that the media can be a force for good. By the government’s own report, 80% of parents who got the life-saving advice got it from the TV ads.
‘But mostly this is for Sebastian, whom we still miss, and all of those tragically lost lives.’
The mother-of-five, pictured here with her then-husband Mike Hollingsworth and their son Jake in 1993, says she has gone through a ‘tough’ battle with cancer
Anne, pictured here with her son Sebastian in 1991, became a campaigner for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome awareness after her son died of the condition
The TV presenter began her career with BBC West in Bristol before pairing up with Nick Owen to host Central News in 1982 when ATV became Central Television.
A year later she joined TV-am to replace Anna Ford and Angela Rippon, with Owen recommending her to the show’s director Greg Dyke.
After eight years on the programme, where she hosted Good Morning Britain, she left to work at TV Weekly before re-joining Owen to host the BBC show Good Morning with Anne and Nick in 1992.
Since the millennium Anne has been a regular guest on shows including The Wright Stuff and Jeremy Vine, where she also appeared as a stand in presenter, as well as Loose Women.
The TV personality joined GB News in 2022 to host the channel’s weekend breakfast show with Stephen Dixon, and will return to the role from this Saturday.
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