Davina McCall Opens Up on Brain Tumour Scare and the Emotional Checklist She Left Behind

Davina McCall has shared the extraordinary steps she took after being diagnosed with a brain tumour during a routine health screening linked to her menopause campaigning. Although she was told the growth was benign, the 57 year old admitted she became convinced she was dying and began writing an end-of-life checklist, which she now calls “the best gift.”

In a moving interview, the former Big Brother host revealed the list came together about four months after her diagnosis, when she was still in denial. The turning point came after a sobering conversation with her fourth neurosurgeon, who told her bluntly she had to act quickly or risk death.

Davina recalled being told: “It’s a big tumour. It can’t grow anymore, or you’ll get water on the brain. If you’re on a plane, there would have to be an emergency landing,” reports the Express.

Speaking at Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place Festival, she explained how she had to get herself mentally ready before the surgery. “I needed to get my brain in the right place where I could be calm before the operation. I had to make sure that my kids were going to be OK if I did not make it. That is all I really cared about. I knew my partner, Michael, would be OK as he is a whole person, but I was really worried about my kids.”

Davina, who has been with her partner and “soulmate” Michael, a celebrity hairdresser, since 2019, has three children from her 17-year marriage to Matthew Robertson, which ended in 2017. She shares Holly, 23, Tilly, 21, and Chester, 18, with her ex-husband.

“I went into forensic thinking about my children and where they were at in their lives, what stage they were at. You are only happy as your unhappiest child,” she said.

“But I realised that they would be great, they would miss me, and I want to be with them, but they would be fine. I felt 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”, reported Liverpool Echo.

For Davina, the process of creating that checklist was ultimately about accepting that her family could survive without her if the worst happened. She went through with the brain operation, which she now calls “the best thing to ever happen to me.”

Looking back, she says the experience changed everything. “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.”