Davina McCall has confessed that she’s “not afraid of dying” after recovering from major brain surgery. The 57-year-old presenter went under the knife back in November 2024 to remove a benign brain tumour. The mass was found during a health check-up linked to her extensive menopause advocacy work.
In April, McCall confirmed that her “final MRI” scan had reassuringly shown that the cyst is “not coming back”. During an appearance on Fearne Cotton’s podcast Happy Place, she revealed how her outlook on life and death has changed.
She told the broadcaster: “I am not afraid of dying anymore and it was the biggest journey of my life. From August 23 to November 24 was an amazing time where something changed.
“Begin Again, the podcast I started to help other people on their journey of living a life that they love enough to feel on their deathbed, whenever that may be, that I have no regrets.
“I have lived the life I wanted, and I’m not lying there going, ‘I wish I’d done that thing, I wish I’d done that job, I wish I’d not stayed in this relationship’, all of those I haven’t lived the life I want [things] and Begin Again is about just begin again and live the life you want.”
The former Big Brother host said her only concern about death now is how her family would cope after her passing. Speaking about the time her tumour was found, she added: “I thought I need to get my brain in the right place and that was to a place where I could be calm, and what did I need to do to do that?
“Were my kids going to be okay if I didn’t make it? That’s all I really cared about. I knew Michael [Douglas], Michael’s a whole person, Michael’s Michael, but I was really worried about my kids.
“I went forensic on thinking about my children and where they were at in their life, what stage they were at. You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child, right?
“I came to a realisation after about six months of cross-examining them about their life and telling them the whole time how much I’ve loved my life. My eldest daughter kept on. She was like, ‘You are not dying’, I was like, ‘No, no, no’, I realised that they would be great.
“They’d miss me and I want to be with them but they would be okay. I felt like I could go to sleep on the operating table and know that they were all here to help me, but I can let go of the outcome and it was the best gift. I am not afraid of dying.”
After her surgery, McCall spent time in intensive care before recovering at home with the help of the celebrity hair stylist. She spoke about the removal of the tumour while co-parenting this year’s Red Nose Day for Comic Relief and said it was “the hardest thing I’ve ever been through.”
According to the NHS non-cancerous brain tumours are more common in people over the age of 50, and symptoms include headaches, vision problems and drowsiness, and for some it can be “difficult to remove without damaging the surrounding tissue”.
The broadcaster has long advocated for women’s health issues, and has presented a documentary called Sex, Myths and the Menopause as well as another focused on contraception called Davina McCall’s Pill Revolution.
In 2023, she became an MBE in the King’s birthday honours for services to broadcasting and was even given a special recognition gong at the National Television Awards in 2024 for her broadcasting career.
