Sarah Beeny has revealed she used dog clippers to shave her head as she calls on fellow cancer patients to feel “unashamed” of their baldness.
The presenter, who is best known for her work on Help! My House Is Falling Down and Sarah Beeny’s New Life In The Country, revealed in August that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
In a new interview with Daily Mail’s Weekend magazine, Beeny, 50, said she has more than ten different wigs but does not feel ashamed of her bare scalp.
“Having no hair often seems to be associated with anger,” Beeny said.
“You’re a victim or it’s a punishment, like Fantine in Les Misérables, or Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones. People are ashamed of their bald heads.
On her decision to shave her head using dog clippers, Beeny said: “The more I talk to people in this boat, the word I keep hearing is ‘shame’ and I thought: Why? If you’ve got breast cancer and you’re having treatment, the fact you have no hair is not a reason to be ashamed.
“I don’t want to be ashamed. I don’t want other people to feel ashamed. I want to change that stereotype.”
Beeny first revealed her diagnosis on Instagram, sharing a photograph of her four sons initially cutting off some of her hair.
“A little pile of not very good condition hair on its way to Little Princess Trust,” Beeny wrote in the caption.
“My trainee hairdressers cut off my hair on Friday night. Getting one step ahead after the first chemo treatment for breast cancer on Friday. The exclusive club you’d rather not be a member of!”
Discussing the effect of chemotherapy on her hair and mental health, Beeny said it was “really traumatic” when she ran her hands through her hair and handfuls began falling out.
“That’s when I cried. I thought, ‘Oh God, this is it. It’s happening’,” she said.
The presenter is set to finish chemotherapy on 30 December, and said she will celebrate with a bottle of champagne.
