TV star Davina McCall has said she is back home after undergoing surgery to have a benign tumour removed from her brain.
The popular presenter shared an emotional Instagram Story on Monday morning (25 November) telling her followers that she was “on the other side” and wanted to give “an enormous heartfelt thank you” to everyone who’d sent her messages of support.
“It’s meant the world,” the Big Brother host said in the clip. “My short-term memory is a bit remiss but that’s something I can work on. I’m writing down everything I’m doing to keep myself feeling safe.
“I’m on the mend, I’m resting, I’m sleeping loads, I feel really good. And very lucky.”
The video marks the first time fans have heard directly from McCall, 57, since she broke the news of her diagnosis earlier this month.
Her partner, hairstylist Michael Douglas, has continued to update her social media accounts while she was receiving treatment.
In Monday’s Instagram Story, McCall said she was being “brilliantly looked after” by Michael and her step-mum Gabby.
She said she wanted to give a “big up to step-mums”, saying Gabby had “been an amazing rock my whole life” and describing her as “a big dose of vitamin G”.
“When something happens like this, I feel so grateful,” she continued. “I’ve always been grateful, I’ve been really lucky in my life but I feel unbelievably grateful right now.”
In a previous statement, McCall said the benign brain tumour, a colloid cyst, was discovered after she was offered a courtesy health check-up as part of her menopause advocacy work.
According to the charity Braintrust, such tumours are not cancerous; such cysts tend to grow slowly.
McCall described it as a “big” tumour, 14mm wide, adding: “It needs to come out, because if it grows, it would be bad.”
“Something that keeps coming up for me is this word ‘courage’, bravery and being strong. It’s a lot about entering into this next phase of my life and what does that look like,” she told followers before the surgery.
Her partner Michael Douglas said McCall’s procedure was “textbook” according to the surgeon and that she had been recovering in the ICU as a precaution.
Having first risen to national fame as the host of the inaugural series of Channel 4 reality show Big Brother, McCall has gone on to front programmes including Comic Relief, The Million Pound Drop, and ITV’s My Mum, Your Dad. She is also a judge on the ITV shows The Masked Singer and The Masked Dancer.
Last year, she became an MBE in the King’s birthday honours for services to broadcasting. In 2022, she released a book titled Menopausing: The Positive Roadmap To Your Second Spring, with the aim of ending “the shame and horrific misinformation surrounding menopause”.
