Davina McCall returns to running after breast cancer treatment, shares 'super positive' update

Davina McCall posted a selfie to Instagram on Saturday morning, beaming in a red beanie, with a simple caption: her first run since surgery. 'Back to day one of running again,' she wrote. 'So good for my head. Feeling super positive.' It was a small moment—a woman jogging again—but it arrived after two consecutive health crises that had reshaped the past year of her life.

In November 2024, the 58-year-old television presenter had announced she'd been diagnosed with a colloid cyst, a rare benign brain tumour. She underwent a gruelling six-hour operation to remove the 14-millimetre growth. Recovery was long. But almost exactly a year later, on November 8th of this year, she revealed something else: six weeks prior, she had discovered a lump in her breast while filming The Masked Singer. She'd had it removed through a lumpectomy and was now facing radiotherapy.

The discovery itself carried an odd grace. While on set at the Lorraine studios, someone had posted signs on the bathroom doors encouraging women to check their breasts. McCall, like many others, followed the prompt each time she used the toilet. The lump was still there. She got a biopsy. It was cancer. She had surgery. The tumour was small—caught very early, she said, which was 'incredibly lucky.' It hadn't spread.

In a candid video posted to her followers, McCall explained her decision to speak publicly about the diagnosis. She'd done the same with her brain tumour, she said, because she wanted to help others. She recalled the moment of discovery, the anger that followed, and how she'd worked through it. 'I was very angry when I found out,' she admitted, 'but I let go of that and I feel in a much more positive place now.' She thanked her doctors and nurses, her family, and her fiancé Michael Douglas.

The cancer was gone, but the treatment wasn't finished. In January, she would undergo five days of radiotherapy—what she called an 'insurance policy' to keep the disease from returning. It was a precaution, a standard next step, but it meant more appointments, more time in medical settings, more of her body being managed by protocol and science.

Yet here she was on Saturday, lacing up her trainers and running. Not far, not fast—day one of running again. But moving. Her body working the way bodies are supposed to work when they're healing and strong. The post drew hundreds of comments from people who'd followed her journey, who'd watched her navigate two serious diagnoses in twelve months and come out the other side still smiling, still fighting, still willing to tell the story so that someone else might catch something early too.