Actress Beverley Callard announced on Friday's Late Late Show that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer, revealing that she had received the news just minutes before she filmed her first scenes in her new role on RTÉ's Fair City.
Beverley Callard shares her breast cancer diagnosis.
— The Late Late Show (@RTELateLateShow) February 6, 2026
Sending her lots of love and well wishes 💗#LateLate pic.twitter.com/JH3c9x4h1g
The English star, who is best known for playing iconic Coronation Street character Liz McDonald, has joined Fair City as Lily, the long-lost mother of Carrigstown resident Gwen, played by co-star Emily Lamey.
Callard recounted to host Patrick Kielty how her arrival in Dublin had coincided with the news about her health.
"It's difficult to know where to start," she said.
"I knew I was coming over here for four weeks, and then I'd a couple of weeks back in the UK, and then back here - for a long time.
"But I'd had some tests just before I left the UK, and literally 15/20 minutes before [my first Fair City scene] I was in my dressing room at Fair City, getting ready to go on, and I was quite nervous, thinking, 'I hope everybody thinks I'm alright...'
"My consultant rang me and said, 'You've got to come back to the UK'. I said, 'Well, I can't possibly, you know? I've just taken a new job'.
"I said, 'I'm away for a month' - and I was diagnosed with breast cancer."
"But I'm fine. I'm absolutely fine," Callard continued.
"My head was a bit mashed for the first few days. It's very early stages. And I'm along with, you know, thousands of other women [who have been diagnosed] as well.
"It's early stages. I travel back to the UK tomorrow (Saturday), just for a couple of weeks. They're going to test lymph nodes and lymph glands and all that. And I need an operation and some radiotherapy - and then I'm coming back to Fair City. I will be back in just a few weeks."
After applause from the audience, Callard explained why she had chosen to share the news on the Late Late Show.
"The world is full of strong, feisty women, and I love strong, feisty women," she said.
"And I just thought, rather than read about it in a newspaper and it all being distorted and everything else, I just said it.
"So that's it. And my family are all supportive. They all know. My close friends know."
She said she is looking forward to moving to Ireland permanently.
"We truly love it so much," she said of being here with her husband, Jon McEwan.
"It's blown us away this month. We [will] relocate here. We've got a house near Wicklow, and we get the keys on 1 March."
Callard said her Fair City casting had been in the pipeline for "almost a year", and she had become "addicted" to the RTÉ One soap in the interim, watching episodes on her computer in the UK.
She will make her Fair City debut as Lily on Thursday, 19 February on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.
"I just so hope the viewers like her," she said.
"It's a great character, and I really want to do her justice. And I'm loving being here."
If you have been affected by issues raised in this article, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.
Fair City airs on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
The Late Late Show, Fridays, RTÉ One and RTÉ Player, 9:35pm
