Davina McCall is now recovering from brain surgery, after a shock health scan found a 14mm benign tumour.
And this isn’t the first time Davina has opened up to fans about her health struggles over the years. The 57-year-old TV presenter, who is well known for her commitment to living an active lifestyle, is also an outspoken voice on women’s health issues, with her own miserable experiences with the menopause prompting her to take action.
She’s also spoken candidly about her harrowing issues with drugs, which began when she was only 14 years old. Now, she has a new agony to face. While giving a talk for a menopause company a few months back, a health scan determined that Davina had a brain tumour – a revelation that left her ‘blindsided’.
‘Blindsided’ by brain tumour
In an emotional video update given to fans via Instagram, gym buff Davina – who has released a number of fitness DVDs plus an excercise equipment range – admitted she’d been ‘blindsided’ by the tumour, given how healthy she believed herself to be. Confessing that she had assumed she’d ‘ace’ the scan, Davina shared: “I was offered a health scan which I thought i was going to ace but it turned out I had benign brain tumour, which is very rare, three in a million.”
Although she was thankfully found to be at no immediate risk, Davina revealed that doctors had feared the tumour could grow and cause complications, and so made the decision to operate. Clarifying that the tumour is ‘very rare’, Davina also asked followers to pray for her, continuing: “I slightly put my head in the sand for a while, I saw a few neurosurgeons, had quite a lot of opinions and realised I needed to take it out. It’s quite big, it’s 14mm wide and it needs to come out because if it grows it would be bad. I’m having it removed. Say a prayer for me. I’m in good spirits.”
Davina, who has known about her diagnosis for a few months, shared that she will need to stay in hospital for nine days before being allowed to return home to continue her recovery. As Davina continues her recuperation period, her boyfriend Michael Douglas has taken over her social media channels, where he has reassured fans that although the popular presenter is in ‘great shape’ she will remain ‘off grid’ for now.
Award winning hair stylist Michael, who has been in a relationship with Davina since 2019, said: “Hey everyone. Michael here. @davinamccall will be ‘off grid’ for a bit while she recovers from this brain operation. She is in great shape and in very good hands.”
As explained on the NHS website: “A benign (non-cancerous) brain tumour is a mass of cells that grows relatively slowly in the brain. Non-cancerous brain tumours tend to stay in one place and do not spread. It will not usually come back if all of the tumour can be safely removed during surgery. If the tumour cannot be completely removed, there’s a risk it could grow back. In this case it’ll be closely monitored using scans or treated with radiotherapy.”
Dark drug addiction
Davina is now known for her active, health conscious lifestyle – which she adopted in her 30s after welcoming her children. However, her teenage years and 20s were marred by a dark drug addiction, which began at the age of just 14 when she did cocaine with her sister.
A year later, she did cocaine again, this time with her French mother Florence, a woman Davina recalls as being a ‘chaotic’ and ‘party central’ alcoholic in a 2023 interview with The Times. During a 2023 episode of the Diary of a CEO podcast, Davina, who would take cannabis with Florence when she was just 12, told host Steven Bartlett that she’d also used heroin by her 16th birthday.
A turning point came when Davina was 24, when her friend Sarah issued a stern ultimatum on the way to a Santana concert. Davina told podcast listeners: “My best friend said she was going to take me to Santana…she got me into her car. And I got in the car and she shut the doors and she said, ‘I’m actually not going to take you to Santana. I need to tell you some things’. She said, ‘I know that you’ve been lying to me’. Davina confessed: “I had just come off the back of a 24 hour cocaine bender which is what made me realise heroin wasn’t my problem, all drugs were my problem.”
She continued: “My friend said, ‘We all know you been lying to us, all your friends, and you are the topic of conversation at every dinner party I go to.’” The shame starts piling on. I started to feel a little bit, ‘well f*** you’ to her. This is virtually my only friend I’ve got left’.”
Despite her initial anger, which saw Davina slam the door and burst into tears, the tough love message sunk in and the future TV star began to seek help. However, things nearly could have been very different. “I was a mess. You name it, I took it. Cocaine, ecstasy and heroin,” she told The Mirror.
Tragedy nearly struck Davina after she accidentally overdose while trying to escape her ‘dark’ reality. “Drugs took me to a very, very, very dark place and, one night, I overdosed,” she admitted. “It was very frightening as it was a very gradual overdose. I’d had a cocktail of drugs, because I didn’t want to feel normal. I was constantly trying to escape myself – I was like a piece of fruit rotting from the inside.”
She went on to reflect: “When you hate yourself so much, you think you are worthless. Someone would smile at me and I wouldn’t understand why as I wasn’t worth anything. I had to try and love myself but I didn’t even like myself, so it was a big leap.”
As she was ‘high-functioning’, right up until her argument with Sarah, Davina had believed she was getting away with her drug use. She told This Morning in 2016: “I always wore make-up, I had a job, I didn’t steal. I wasn’t like your average street junkie,””Everyone is different, but for me, it was when my friend said, ‘Everyone is talking about you and what a mess you are,’ that changed things. I thought I was fully functioning. But I wasn’t. My cover was blown.”
Davina finally got clean at the age of 25 with the help of her then boyfriend and music legend Eric Clapton, who supported her as she attended meetings at Narcotics Anonymous (NA). She went on to land a life-changing presenting gig with MTV in 1992 and the rest, as they say, is history. Davina asserted: “And because I got clean I got the job I’d dreamed of and that changed my life forever.”
Menopause heartache
Women’s health advocate Davina has been very open about the mental and physical difficulties she experienced during the menopause, which she claims made her feel as though she’d ‘lost three years’ of her life. During her keynote speech at the CIPD Annual Conference and Exhibition in 2023, ‘accidental activist’ Davina revealed that she’d ended up experiencing a number of symptoms that affected her work – including short-term memory loss.
Admitting that she had feared she’d ‘never work again’, Davina told attendees: “You don’t want to make a fuss because you’re embarrassed and you think it’s ageing. You feel like perhaps an older stateswoman in the business will not be valued and that the menopause will be ageing.
“So you don’t tell people that you’re struggling. And then, you think you’re in fear of your job, but then you don’t get any support. And then the worst thing happens: you really do feel like you can’t do it anymore and then you leave.”
Davina helped raise some much-needed awareness about the menopause in her acclaimed 2021 documentary, Sex, Myths and the Menopause, which saw the Big Brother legend discuss her personal menopause journey, which saw her deal with hot flushes alongside depression and mental fog. She’s since become one of the most prominent voices on the topic, urging for better treatment of women in midlife, whether that be in the workplace or in healthcare.
In an interview with Hello! magazine last month, Davina also spoke of the emotional toll menopause had taken on her – confessing that she felt a sense of grief knowing she wouldn’t be able to have any more biological children.
Davina, who began experiencing menopause symptoms at the age of 43, told the publication: “The menopause reframes your whole life. I remember grieving at the beginning of perimenopause, feeling that I didn’t want any more kids but that I wasn’t ready to not be able to have any more. I felt awful for a couple of years. Then, when I got my hormones more balanced, I felt more in control. I hit 50 and realised that that was it – no more periods – and it was like beginning again.”
*Frank offers confidential advice about drugs and addiction (email frank@talktofrank.com, message 82111 or call 0300 123 6600) or the NHS has information about getting help.
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