Liz Hurley has admitted that her decades-long work with Breast Cancer Research has left her feeling frightened, as she highlighted an alarming rise in diagnoses among younger women.
The actress, 60, appeared on ITV's This Morning on Wednesday (October 7), where she spoke to hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard about her three decades of campaigning for the charity. Hurley has been involved with Breast Cancer Research since her grandmother died from the disease in 1992.
Decades of campaigning
Reflecting on her 30 years of work, Hurley said there had been "such massive changes in the landscape of breast cancer, so much more is known today." She added that there had been "so many amazing developments in diagnosis, in treatments."
However, she stressed the ongoing scale of the disease, noting that "still in England, one in seven women get diagnosed with breast cancer. They don't all make it."
Rising rates in younger women
Hurley pointed to a recent "alarming" figure showing that young women are now being diagnosed with breast cancer, adding that "rates are rising in younger women."
She also spoke about the personal toll of her campaigning, saying: "Every year more and more people talk to me about their own issues with breast cancer, whether it was themselves, or their mothers, or their sisters, and their work, or their dads, or their daughters. I've met so many people."
A personal connection
Making a sad confession, Hurley said: "And every year I seem to meet more. And even though it's 1 in 7 women in the UK are diagnosed, I seem to know more than that. and it's very frightening. It's frightening for everybody."
Speaking to The Times about her memories of her grandmother, who died from breast cancer in 1992, Hurley described how her grandmother showed her scars from a double mastectomy but then changed the subject. "At that time, there was so little written about breast cancer," she said.
She added: "It wasn't until I started to learn about breast cancer through Evelyn Lauder that I began to feel so angry that I hadn't known more at the time, when perhaps I could have helped her."
Hurley concluded: "We know that if a cancer is found and treated early, there is a 95% chance of recovery. If only my grandmother and countless other scared women could have known this."
This Morning airs Monday to Friday at 10am on ITV1 and ITVX.
