Davina McCall has revealed she experienced symptoms resembling advanced Alzheimer's following surgery for a benign brain tumour. Speaking on the Mad, Sad and Bad podcast with host Paloma Faith, the TV presenter described 2025 as the "toughest year" of her life for both herself and her husband, celebrity hairstylist Michael Douglas.
Memory loss after surgery
She said: "After I'd had my brain tumour taken out [in 2024], I had advanced Alzheimer's, so I couldn't remember anything. When I came out of the operation, I didn't know I'd had an operation. The staff came in every day, and they'd go: 'What's my name?' and I'd go: 'I don't know'."
"Michael would come and visit for two hours, and he'd go to the loo and come back, and I'd go: 'Oh my God, you're here,' and I didn't know he'd been there. I couldn't watch a movie for six months because I couldn't remember what had happened in the movie 15 minutes before. A book I couldn't remember the page before."
Music as 'mind physio'
Davina credited music with aiding her recovery. "I did singing lessons. Music. That was my mind physio. Yeah, music was what healed me."
"And last October was the first time I woke up, and I went: 'Oh my god, I remember what I did yesterday," reports the Express.
Anger at the tumour
She shared with Steven Bartlett on her Begin Again podcast: "I felt like this thing had taken control of me and I was so angry about that."
"I couldn't let it go. I was like: 'How dare you control my daily life like this and make me feel every day like I'm in danger?'"
Diagnosis and treatment
Davina received a diagnosis of a non-cancerous brain tumour following a routine health screening in 2024. At the time, she told fans: "A few months ago, I did a menopause talk for a company, and they offered me a health scan in return, which I thought I was going to ace."
"But it turned out I had a benign brain tumour called a colloid cyst, which is very rare - three in a million."
Davina revealed she would need a craniotomy, a procedure requiring the temporary removal of sections of the skull to extract the tumour.
