Davina McCall has said her husband was "just the right side of funny" to help get her through her health battles. The former Big Brother host, 58, was diagnosed with a benign brain tumour in late 2024 before learning that she had breast cancer just under a year later.
Husband hailed as 'kindest, smartest'
The TV star, who is married to hairdresser Michael Douglas, announced that she was cancer-free in April and has now hailed her husband as the "kindest, smartest" man she has ever known.
She said: "He is the kindest, smartest, most open, intelligent, wise man I’ve ever met. I can’t believe that I am at this ripe old age, with everything I’ve been through, and was lucky enough to experience it with him at my side.
"He had just the right mix of real wisdom, knowing the right thing to say at the right time, but also just the right side of funny."
Finding humour in illness
Davina then opened up on her experience of being ill and found it all to be a "depressing" experience until her husband was able to find the humour in it all.
She added: "It’s quite depressing, being ill. It feels like it goes on for ages. We were in the supermarket and I’m pushing the trolley and he goes to get something and then he runs up to the trolley and goes, 'Ah, no. You’ve got cancer.' I mean the relief, the giggle, thinking the bubble’s been burst with the stress of it all."
Ahead of picking up a lifetime achievement award recently at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Davina talked about her highs and lows on and off screen.
Dealing with diagnoses publicly
She continued: "I had this brain tumour diagnosis and I spoke about it because I was going to disappear off the face of the earth for three months. So I said exactly what it is, how big it is and the name of it so they (media) could cover everything they needed to, and I would be left alone. It was a really good way of dealing with it.
"But when I got breast cancer, it was like f**k, I could really disappear and not talk to anybody about this, but I can’t, because I have done this before.
"And d’you know who helped me, it was really strange it was Peter Kay, he called me when I was in hospital with my brain tumour. And I don’t really know him that well, but he was unbelievably supportive. And then when I had my breast cancer diagnosis, he helped, and he just talked me through 'What do you want to do?'
"I was kind of angry about having to talk about it because I knew I was going to be questioned about HRT and there was going to be judgment around that."
Davina underwent an operation to remove a benign brain tumour in 2024 and was so worried she even wrote goodbye letters to her family members. In November 2025 she revealed she underwent surgery for breast cancer and posted on social media she was "so relieved" to learn it had not spread.
She thanked medical staff at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, where she had the lumpectomy, and urged women to get their breasts checked.
