Davina McCall has revealed the heartbreaking way she prepared herself for the possibility of dying at 56. In November 2024, the television presenter underwent a craniotomy after doctors found a “very rare” colloid cyst on her brain. The complex five-hour operation was successful, but Davina later experienced Alzheimer’s-like symptoms for roughly a year. In the moments before surgery, she had to confront the possibility that she might not survive.
Reflecting on the experience, Davina said she had to “look death in the face” and remain composed rather than dwell on what might happen.
“I looked dying in the face when I had the brain surgery,” the former Big Brother host told Paloma Faith’s Mad, Bad and Sad podcast. “I lay there and I thought, ‘Okay, I have to go into that operating theatre and go to sleep and let go of the outcome.’”
“I can’t go in full of fear,” she added.
Davina explained that she did not want her fear to affect the medical team caring for her. “I don’t want to fill the surgeon and everybody working with him full of fear. You know, ‘I’ve got three kids, please keep me alive.’ You want someone to be calm,” she said.
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“I thought, I have to be calm to help them be calm. I looked back at my life and I thought, have I kept my side of the street clean? For me, that meant apologising for something that you feel you need to apologise for and not expecting anything in return.”
Davina continued: “And I thought, yes, I have done that throughout my life. Do my kids know how much I love them? Yes. So, I thought, I can go in there and I can let go of the outcome.”
“Let’s face it, we all think that we’re going to die when we’re 70 or 80, but there I was, 56, thinking, ‘Oh, this could be it. You haven’t got the extra 30 years.’”
The presenter also encouraged listeners to start completing their bucket lists while they can, agreeing that people should try to live each day as though it could be their last.
Her brain cyst diagnosis came just two months after she received the all-clear from a mammogram. Davina also underwent a lumpectomy soon afterwards and announced in April 2026 that she had been given the all-clear.