TV presenter Davina McCall has revealed the severity of her memory loss after requiring surgery to remove a brain tumour in 2024
Davina McCall has revealed she had advanced Alzheimer’s symptoms following her brain tumour surgery in 2024. The TV presenter, 58, confessed she suffered months of memory loss following the surgery.
It left her with huge side effects and she admitted she struggled for months. She candidly opened up to Paloma Faith on the Mad, Sad and Bad podcast.
She recalled a time shortly after surgery when her husband Michael Douglass came to visit her – but she had no recollection. “After I’d had my brain tumor taken out, I had advanced Alzheimer’s,” she said.
“So I couldn’t remember anything. So 2025 was the hardest year of Michaels and my lives.”
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Paloma went on to ask what the time from of her memory lapse was and she replied: “When I came out of the operation, I didn’t know I’d had an operation. The staff came in every day and they’d go “what’s my name” and I’d go “I don’t know”.
“Michael would come and visit for two hours and he’d go to the loo and come back an I’d go “oh my god you’re here” and I didn’t know he’d been there. I couldn’t watch a movie for six months, because I couldn’t remember what had happened in the movie 15 minutes before. A book I couldn’t remember the page before.”
In a bid to regain her memory, Davina had singing lessons. She called music her “mind physio” before adding: “Last October was the first time I woke up and I went, ‘Oh my god, I remember what I did yesterday.”
In August, Davina revealed secret calls from comedian Peter Kay helped her through her brain tumour and cancer diagnosis, even though the pair aren’t close pals. Ahead of picking up a lifetime achievement award at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Davina spoke of her her highs and lows on and off screen.
She explained: “I had this brain tumour diagnosis and I spoke about it because I was going to disappear off the face of the earth for three months. So I said exactly what it is, how big it is and the name of it so they (media) could cover everything they needed to, and I would be left alone. It was a really good way of dealing with it.
“But when I got breast cancer, it was like f**k, I could really disappear and not talk to anybody about this, but I can’t, because I have done this before.
“And d’you know who helped me, it was really strange it was Peter Kay, he called me when I was in hospital with my brain tumour. And I don’t really know him that well, but he was unbelievably supportive. And then when I had my breast cancer diagnosis, he helped, and he just talked me through ‘What do you want to do?’
“I was kind of angry about having to talk about it because I knew I was going to be questioned about HRT and there was going to be judgment around that.”
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