TV presenter Sarah Beeny has said having cancer "feels like a lifetime ago now".
The 54-year-old former host of Channel 4’s Property Ladder also reflected on her mental health and admitted she has struggled with it more "as I’ve got older".
Beeny was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2022 and received treatment, including a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and also had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed to prevent ovarian cancer from developing.
In an interview with The Mirror, the broadcaster reflected on life since getting the all-clear in April 2023 and said: "I was lucky. I was fortunate to get diagnosed in time, and my treatment was successful. I have a whole life to live now.
"It feels like a lifetime ago now."
The mother-of-four has since become a prominent advocate for breast cancer awareness, having also lost her mother to the same disease at 10-years-old.
Referring to her husband Graham Swift, she continued: "Graham laughs and says, ‘Your therapy is to pick up the carpet, sweep everything underneath and put it back down again’.
"But that’s just my coping mechanism. Cancer was the big bad wolf to me and now I’ve had it.
"If you had to sum up the 10 things I’m about, cancer wouldn’t be on the list."
The property expert also reflected on how she feels obliged to constantly keep herself busy and said she is "endlessly dissatisfied".
Beeny said: "It’s my drug. I don’t sit down much. And I like a challenge.
"My husband says, ‘Can you not see what you have achieved and be proud? Look at the lives you’ve changed and the women in the building industry you’ve empowered?’ And I say, ‘No. I need to do something else’."
The presenter also said her move from south London to the Somerset countryside in 2018 "helped my mental health", adding: "I wouldn’t say I ever get depressed, but I have up days and down days.
"As I’ve got older, the clouds come."
Beeny recounted noticing a decline in her mental health following the birth of her eldest son, Billy, and told the newspaper: "It was really difficult. I was thinking, ‘What’s wrong with me?’.
"I remember Graham saying, ‘You have to eat something’, he made me baked beans and I couldn’t even swallow them. It was so overwhelming and I was thinking, ‘I love this little baby, but I’m not grown-up enough for this’.
"I was so full of self-doubt. I look back and realise it was baby blues."
Beeny is best known for appearing on shows such as Sarah Beeny’s New Life In The Country, Four Rooms and Help! My House Is Falling Down.
She also hosted podcast Seriously?! With Sarah Beeny and is currently focused on her upcoming Channel 4 show, which is said to follow buyers as they transform properties bought at auction into their dream homes.
Source: Press Association
