HEALTH SHOCK
Celebrity Big Brother & Loose Women star Anne Diamond reveals she has breast cancer in heartbreaking interview
BROADCASTER Anne Diamond has revealed she is being treated for breast cancer.
The ex-Celebrity Big Brother star, 68, received the diagnosis on the same day she learned she was to receive an OBE.
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The former Loose Women panellist has been off air for nearly six months and has undergone a double mastectomy following a nine-hour operation.
Speaking to GB News, the Anne said: “I haven't been on a world cruise.
"It's been a fight against breast cancer. That's what it's been. It's been a long journey.
"And five months later, I'm still not at the end of the journey, but I'm through it enough to come back to work."
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Anne's cancer diagnosis came the same morning she was told she would receive an OBE for her work campaigning on cot deaths.
Her son Sebastian died from sudden infant death syndrome in 1991 and since then she has fronted the Back to Sleep campaign which asks parents to put babies to sleep on their backs.
Describing the day she learned of her OBE and then diagnosis, she said: “It was a wonderful moment and that was like 9.30 in the morning.
“I spent the entire morning at my local hospital where they did everything, biopsies, X-rays, CT scans, a couple of mammograms, everything, and by lunchtime I was still there.
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"A lovely lady came with a lanyard around her neck that said MacMillan Cancer Care and I knew then it was serious."
The veteran broadcaster - who rose to fame alongside Nick Owen at ATV - said she has undergone "a load of radiotherapy" which she admitted "I found very hard".
She added: "It's been a journey, but I'm not pretending for a minute that I am extraordinary.
"I am fully aware that a quarter of women in this country are going through what I've just gone through and I don't have any advice to give. I only have empathy."
Anne first appeared on screen as a reporter on BBC West in Bristol before moving on to ATV - ITV's Midlands regional channel.
It was after ATV became Central Television in 1982 that Anne was first paired with Nick Owen - a partnership that would define both presenters' careers.
But a lengthy dispute over the launch of the channel led Anne to rejoin the BBC as a reporter and afternoon newsreader.
However, it was not long until the Diamond/Owen partnership got off and running in 1983 when the pair were poached by TV-am - the first breakfast-time broadcaster.
After a brief separation in 1990 when Diamond left the show, the pair were reunited to front Good Morning With Anne And Nick on the BBC until 1994.
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