Jonnie Irwin has revealed that he kept his terminal cancer diagnosis a secret, in fear that he would lose work and be treated different by people around him.
Earlier this month, the A Place In The Sun presenter, aged 49, went public with his lung cancer diagnosis - but was determined to continue a relatively normal life rather than being beaten by the devastating disease.
This morning, Jonnie was on ITV's Good Morning Britain to discuss his "terrifying" diagnosis for the first time on national television, touching on why he decided to keep it a secret for so long.
Read more: Lung cancer symptoms to look out for after A Place In The Sun's Jonnie Irwin shares diagnosis
Chatting openly with Ben Shepherd and Susanna Reid, he said: "When people find out you've got cancer - I mean, I know what I felt when I just heard the words - it's just this terrifying thing, the word cancer, and I thought if I feel like that, everybody else will feel like that. And low and behold, I lost some work through it.
"And so, I wanted to keep it a secret because professionally, I didn't want to lose work. But also, socially and emotionally - people treat you differently and people start making decisions for you.
"'Oh I didn't want to ask you because you've got cancer' - Oh yeah, I don't wanna go out and have a good time do I? Because I've got cancer.
"And so, if I withheld that information, I found I could live a normal life right up until probably a year ago."
Opening up about his decision to go pubic with his diagnosis, Jonnie blamed 'busybodies' on social media making remarks about weight loss - with it getting to the point where he felt he couldn't hide the news any longer.
He said: "There's perhaps certain busybodies on social media like 'you don't look well, you look ill' 'you should see a doctor'. I mean I had someone come up to me after an A Place In The Sun live exhibition saying 'my wife says you're too skinny' and I was just like 'well you're not are you?'.
"And he couldn't believe that I was biting back, but what do people expect to gain from it?"
The father-of-three is now focused on spending time with his family, with hopes of making life as brilliant as possible for them. And although he has chose not to inform his little ones of his personal situation, he wants to concentrate on making the most of his time with them.
He added: "It's only been recently that I've considered when we're going to tell them because the twins are only two-and-a-half years old, Rex is four at Christmas. So they're so young, but at the moment I'm me, in a version, and I don't think there's any need to tell them."
He continued: "And I think it would be a lot for them to get their heads round - so for now, let the good times roll for as long as possible."
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