The TV star found she had a rare 14-mm colloid cyst after a chance health check-up
Davina McCall has warned people about one word on your health that could be deadly – yet easy to ignore. It came as she said she was initially hesitant to undergo the health screening that eventually detected a rare brain tumour. The TV star found she had a rare 14-mm colloid cyst, which affects only three in every million people, during a chance medical check-up.
She said the word ‘benign’ does not mean everything is fine. “Benign cysts can be devastating,” she said.
The tumour Davina had was benign and she had neurosurgeon Kevin O’Neill successfully remove it last November. But speaking on BBC Woman’s Hour, she explained more.
“I don’t need a health check, I’m Davina,” she said last week, reflecting on her view before the ordeal. According to the Mirror, she continued: “I’m healthy, I’m fitness lady, that’s what I’m known for. I felt fantastic, I felt the best I’ve felt in year.”
The check-up, which she received as a gift after delivering a menopause talk, featured a Dexter scan and a mole mapping. Despite her hesitation, Davina eventually chose to take the plunge and proceed with it after years of using tanning beds.
“I thought, ‘Oh, well that would be quite useful,'” she recalled. “I was sunbed queen in the 80s… I’m ashamed of that. So I had the health check, and what had flagged up is I heard the word benign.”
Davina stressed the dangers of so-called ‘benign’ brain tumours as she delivered a serious warning to listeners. The star from Wimbledon continued: “I just want to say to anybody listening, that knows anyone with a benign brain tumour, benign does not mean fine.
“That’s a really important thing to say because benign cysts can be devastating. They can be inoperable, they can kill you. Just because it’s not cancerous doesn’t mean it’s not deadly.”
Earlier this year, in April, The Masked Singer celebrity confirmed a ‘final MRI’ scan revealed the colloid cyst was ‘not coming back’ after surgery in November 2024.
If the operation had not been successful, Davina could have suffered a stroke or lost her ability to ‘hold a short-term memory beyond five minutes’.
However, if the cyst had remained undetected, or if Davina had chosen not to have it removed, she could have died ‘suddenly’ without any warning or chance to say goodbye to her family and friends, according to The Times.
During an intensive five-hour surgery, a neurosurgeon cut open her skull ‘from ear to ear’, successfully extracting the 14mm colloid cyst located in the ‘third ventricle’, a deep-seated area of the brain.
But now, having recovered from the operation, the mother-of-three insists it is the ‘best thing’ to ever happen to her. As per The Express, she said previously: “I am not afraid of dying anymore. It was the biggest journey of my life. It was an amazing time.
“I have been on a massive life journey, and I have been through terrible struggles. That is where the learning comes from. If something really hard happens now, I know it is a good thing.”
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