Lauren Laverne has ‘a new fearlessness’ after surviving cancer

Lauren Laverne says surviving cancer has given her “a new fearlessness” because she has been through one of the worst experiences it is possible to face.

“I mean, what’s life going to throw at me that’s worse than that?” the presenter asked. “You’re not frightened of things going wrong, because things have gone wrong.”

In November, the 46-year-old BBC radio and TV host said she had been given the all-clear after receiving treatment.

“The day I was discharged, we managed to get downstairs and [husband] Graeme got me into the car and we didn’t even switch it on,” she told Good Housekeeping. “We just sat in the car and both burst into tears and cried.”

She told the magazine: “I think it’s only when the storm passes that you realise what you’ve been holding in.”

Laverne is now back at work on 6 Music, BBC One’s The One Show and Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.

She had taken time off last year after a announcing that an unspecified cancer had been revealed in a screening test.

The presenter said she had “always been anxious” about being at risk after her mother died of the disease in 2022.

“Especially if you have family members who’ve been through it, you have a sort of watchfulness about your own health, which is obviously why I got tested for everything and why it was picked up, thank God, so early on,” Laverne said.

“The previous six years had been pretty bonkers – and I mean good and bad.

“In 2018, I turned 40 and that was the year I got Desert Island Discs and the [6 Music] breakfast show. Two weeks after I got Desert Island Discs, my dad became ill and died.”

She said the experience of having cancer had taught her that “a real life is lots of big experiences”.

“And the truth of that is, like it or not, going through big stuff expands your emotional vocabulary.

“I’ve learned a massive amount and I hope I’m a better person now. And actually, I probably love my life more now than I did then, because I appreciate everything about it.”