Lorraine Kelly remembered her late friend Dame Deborah James on Monday as she launched the No Butts campaign for the third year.
The initiative, which was first spearheaded by James and Kelly in 2021, strives to raise awareness of bowel cancer and the symptoms of the disease in support of Bowel Cancer Awareness Month.
This year the campaign will celebrate the life of the late Dame Deborah, who died last year at the age of 40 from bowel cancer.
During Monday’s launch, Strictly Judge Anton Du Beke surprised James’ mum, Heather, with a dance in honour of her daughter.
The show also ended with a Dance for Debs, which saw presenters Dr Amir Khan, Dr Anisha Patel, Dr Hilary Jones, Ria Hebden, Mark Heyes and Claer Barrett, as well as Strictly stars Dianne Buswell and Tyler West, dance in her memory.
Speaking about her daughter’s lasting legacy and the return of the No Butts campaign, Heather shared: “I think she’d love it, how great that No Butts is back again.
“Bittersweet because I was here last year with Deborah watching on the TV because she was too poorly, and I said to her, ‘You’ll do it next year’ but that wasn’t to be.”
On the show to mark the launch alongside her mum Heather was Dame Deborah’s sister Sarah Wieczorek, who articulated how much she missed her.
It shouldn’t be weird to talk about our bowels and poo; knowing the symptoms and checking your poo could save your life. 🙌
— Lorraine (@lorraine) April 17, 2023
Retweet to spread the word and let’s break the poo taboo! 🍑💩#NoButts https://t.co/t4ssJgKUd1 pic.twitter.com/YvyYofG37K
Sarah said: “I miss her sparkle, whatever you did with her, whether it was going for a run, a take out on a Friday night, a movie, getting the paddling pool out, friends over for dinner, there was always a sparkle she added to it.
“The ability to make the normal a little bit different.
“People often come up to me and say, ‘It must be really hard to talk about it’, but it’s kind of been like therapy.
“The fact that Deborah was so open about it, we haven’t had to explain a lot of the hard stuff, she’s done that for us. She’s left us a real privilege of a legacy of something to talk about.”
