Joan Collins has confirmed that she only learned that her late sister, author Jackie Collins, was battling breast cancer three weeks before her death. She said Jackie kept the news from all her family to avoid being pitied.
The best-selling writer died in September, aged 77. She had been first diagnosed with breast cancer around seven years ago.
In a candid interview to be broadcast on the Jonathan Ross Show on UTV Ireland this Saturday, Collins says that Jackie did not want people to know about her illness and did not want to be pitied.
She told the actress that she was fighting the disease, and the sisters had planned to spend Christmas together in Hawaii with their families.
"She kept it from most of her family," Collins says. "She kept it from our brother who lives in England and she only told her three daughters.
"She wanted to carry on just as she always had. So since she found out that she had got it she wrote five books - five books in seven years."
"She went to Australia twice; she went to New York three times," the star continues. "She came over to London for my investiture in March. She came over to London again nine days before she died - she did Loose Women. She was phenomenal, a phenomenal woman."
During the interview, the Dynasty star admits that while she and Jackie were not estranged, they had not been as close in recent years.
"I was going out with somebody who she loathed and he didn't like her very much and so we sort of didn't spend a lot of time together," Collins explains.
She says that she has yet to fully process the fact that her sister has passed away and the "great grief" that accompanies such a realisation.
"You never get over it; you just learn to live with it."
The Jonathan Ross Show, UTV Ireland, Saturday 10.20pm
