Davina McCall has shared that she is undergoing brain surgery after doctors discovered a rare tumour.
On Friday morning, Davina posted a pre-recorded video message on Instagram, telling her followers that a benign brain tumour had been discovered during a health check earlier this year.
“A few months ago I did a menopause talk for a company, and they offered me a health scan in return, which I thought I was going to ace,” the former Big Brother host began.
“But it turned out I had a benign brain tumour called a colloid cyst, which is very rare.
“I slightly put my head in the sand for a while, and then I saw quite a few neurosurgeons. I got lots of opinions and I realised that I have to get it taken out. [The tumour] is big, for the space, it fills the space, it’s 14mm wide and it needs to come out because if it grows, it would be bad.
“So, I’m having it removed via a craniotomy, they go through the top of my head here, and through the two halves of my brain, to the middle, get the cyst, empty it, take it out, Bob’s your uncle.”
Assuring her followers that she’s “in good spirits”, she encouraged them to “say a prayer for me” and insisted that her partner, Michael, has “got my back”.
“I’m OK. It’s been up and down obviously, we’ve been through a lot,” she continued. “For the recovery, I’m going to be in hospital for about nine days, and then I’m going to be going home, but I’m going to be off my phone for a while.”
Davina insisted: “I don’t want you to worry about me, I’m doing that enough as it is. I am not worrying too much, and I am in a good space, and I have all the faith in the world in my surgeon and his team, and I am handing the reins over to him, he knows what he’s doing, and I’m going to do the getting better bit after.”
Michael is now running Davina’s Instagram page while she recovers, telling her followers: “[Davina] will be ‘off grid’ for a bit while she recovers from this brain operation. She is in great shape and in very good hands.
“I’ll do the odd update from her account here for anyone interested. I’m sure she’ll read all the comments when she’s able to, so feel free to send love. The support of people is amazingly powerful.”
Davina is best known for her work on shows like Big Brother, The Million Pound Drop and Long Lost Family.
More recently, she joined the panel of the UK version of The Masked Singer, and currently fronts ITV’s My Mum, Your Dad, having campaigned to the network for a number of years for a dating show with older contestants.