BBC's Green Goddess Diana Moran Reveals 16-Year Brain Tumour Battle
BBC Breakfast legend Diana Moran, the iconic fitness expert known as the Green Goddess, has courageously disclosed that she has been living with a brain tumour for the past 16 years. This revelation comes after she previously triumphed over both breast and skin cancer, showcasing her remarkable resilience in the face of multiple health challenges.
A Lifetime of Health Struggles and Public Fame
The 86-year-old fitness pioneer, who shot to fame in the 1980s presenting fitness segments on BBC's Breakfast Time and later appeared on shows like BBC Breakfast and The Wright Stuff, opened up about her health during a recent podcast interview. Diana was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988, undergoing a double mastectomy and reconstruction, before facing skin cancer in 1999.
Speaking to Best magazine on their Suddenly Single podcast, Diana shared: 'I have to say, I have been very unwell for the past six months, on and off, I've been very unwell.' She continued: 'I've got a brain tumour. It kicked off through another operation that I was having.'
The Tumour Discovery and Recent Health Crisis
Diana explained that her brain tumour was discovered 16 years ago during a charity run in Hyde Park when something went wrong, leading to a hospital visit where the tumour was identified. She had been managing it well until recently, when a combination of factors triggered a severe health crisis.
'Possibly the antibiotics that I was given, and everything kicked off, and I thought that my life had come to the end,' she revealed. 'Three times, we called ambulances, 999. It was when I was sent home again eventually, from hospital, I had to rest. There was no way I could do anything else, I had to have help with stairs, toilet seats, walkers, all sorts of things. I couldn't stand by myself at all. It was very, very frightening.'
A Difficult Year and Medical Decisions
The past year has been particularly challenging for Diana, marked by the loss of her partner of 10 years, Robin, the death of her 17-year-old cat Maisie, downsizing to a smaller home, and several health scares. She believes a reaction to antibiotics during another operation for leg cancers may have exacerbated her brain tumour symptoms.
'Then it seemed to have kicked off the brain as well,' Diana said. 'Since then, I've been backwards and forwards to specialists, it's been decided that at age 87, coming up to, it's too old for a big operation. So I'm a bit of an experiment on some drugs at the minute. Let's leave it as that.'
From Accidental Fitness Star to National Icon
Diana recently appeared on This Morning in 2024, chatting with Alison Hammond and Joel Dommett about her unexpected journey into fitness. 'Totally by mistake, wasn't planned at all,' she explained. 'I was a welfare officer in the west country, because I am so tall, they asked me to be a model in one of their fashion shows, I was seen by H TV, my station back home and before I knew it, I was doing afternoon programmes with them.'
Her passion for fitness grew from weekly visits to Butlins to tape Keep Fit sessions with holidaymakers, eventually catching the BBC's attention. 'Then the BBC saw me and it was a starting brick this time, I got this phone call to say would you like to come, probably to just be with us for the first week, I was there for four and a half years!' she recalled, cementing her legacy as the beloved Green Goddess who inspired a nation to get moving.
