Broadcaster Anne Diamond reveals breast cancer diagnosis
By Mike Bedigan, PA Los Angeles Correspondent
British broadcaster Anne Diamond has revealed she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
The GB News presenter said she had received the diagnosis the same day as finding out she was to receive an OBE.
After beginning her career in regional news, Diamond went on to work for both ITV and the BBC, becoming a star of daytime TV in the 1980s and 1990s.
She presented programmes like BBC One’s Good Morning with Anne And Nick, TV-am’s Good Morning Britain and TV Weekly.
She joined GB News in 2022 to host weekend breakfast shows with Stephen Dixon, though has been off air for six months.
Speaking to GB News’ Dan Wootton, she revealed she had undergone a double mastectomy in her “fight against breast cancer” – which she described as “a long journey”.
“I haven’t been on a world cruise, which is what I know social media has been saying… because I’m well known now for loving cruises,” she said.
“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.”
Diamond recalled how she had learned the news on the same morning she was told via email that she had been awarded an OBE for her campaigning on cot deaths.
She and her then husband Mike Hollingsworth lost their son Sebastian in 1990 after he died from sudden infant death syndrome (Sids) – commonly called cot death.
Diamond joined forces with the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID), now known as The Lullaby Trust, and the Department of Health to launch the successful Back to Sleep campaign.
She was made OBE in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to public health and charity.
“It was a wonderful moment and that was like 9.30 in the morning,” she told GB News.
“But I knew then, because I’d already seen my GP, that I had to go to a breast cancer screening thing later in the morning. I thought I would just go for a mammogram, and a couple of tests and I’d be free in an hour.
“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.
“And a lovely lady came with a lanyard around her neck that said MacMillan Cancer Care and I knew then it was serious.”
Diamond added that she did not have advice for others as she was “still going through it”, but added that she was “well enough” to return to work.
“I had the full works, the full mastectomy. This is the first time I’ve talked about it, so it’s quite difficult but I’ve had the full works. The first operation I had was nine hours long,” she said.
“I’ve had a load of radiotherapy, which I found very hard too.
“So it’s been a journey, but I’m not pretending for a minute that I am extraordinary, because 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.”
Diamond will return to GB News on Saturday to host Breakfast with Dixon.
She has also been a presenter on radio shows on LBC, Radio Oxford, BBC London and BBC Berkshire as well as a panellist on Loose Women and The Wright Stuff – a topical debate show hosted by journalist Matthew Wright.
In 2002 Diamond appeared on Celebrity Big Brother and became the second person to be evicted.