BBC presenter Emma Barnett has opened up about her horrific experience with endometriosis, revealing that she cannot remember a single thing about a radio broadcast after being hit with intense pain. The Today host, 41, who was diagnosed with endometriosis in 2024, described the condition as a thief that sometimes mugs you in broad daylight.
Unforgettable Pain During Woman's Hour
Speaking to Metro on Tuesday (2 June), Barnett recalled a particularly severe flare-up during the 75th anniversary of Woman's Hour. My producer looked at me just before we were about to go live, and I think she thought: Is she OK? I cannot remember a single thing about that programme. The pain was incredibly bad that day, but it was a great programme, Im told.
Barnett, who hosted Woman's Hour from 2021 to 2024 before joining Today in March 2024, has been vocal about the debilitating pain caused by endometriosis, a condition where cells similar to the lining of the womb grow in other parts of the body. It can cause severe period pains, heavy bleeding, fatigue, and pelvic pain.
A Living Death for Many Women
Describing the condition as a living death for many women, Barnett said: It might not be a life-threatening condition like cancer, but it is a slow living death for many, many women. In her new BBC documentary, Emma Barnett: Fighting Endometriosis, she shares her own struggles and interviews other women whose lives have been upended by the condition.
When you have a flare-up, it is like a tsunami through every cell of your body, she says in the film. You cannot move. You cant do anything. The pain is total. Its not in your pelvis, its not in your legs, its not in your arms. Its everywhere.
Considering a Hysterectomy
At the end of the programme, Barnett reveals she is contemplating a hysterectomy after admitting in excruciating pain: I just want my womb out. Somethings got to give. She explains: Honestly, the pain that women like me live with, you get to a point where having yourself operated on for two, three, four, five hours, whatever it takes, youll go through it because what youre living with is not life.
Emma Barnett: Fighting Endometriosis is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
