Five celebrities with secret cancer battles…as Elle MacPherson reveals she hid the disease for 7 years

Supermodel Elle MacPherson shocked fans with the announcement of her breast cancer diagnosis earlier this week, and her controversial decision to stop chemotherapy.

But also surprising – for a woman who has spent most of her adult life in the public eye – is that MacPherson, now 60, kept her illness a secret for seven years.

However, many celebrities choose to keep their battle with cancer private and separate from their careers.

Others recovered from the disease decades ago and therefore rarely talk about their experiences.

Here, MailOnline reveals the celebrities you might be surprised to learn have had cancer.

Zoolander actor Ben Stiller spoke openly about his battle with prostate cancer in 2016, after keeping it quiet for two years.

The 58-year-old said he had no symptoms and no specific family history of cancer when his doctor discovered an “aggressive” tumor during a routine test in 2014.

On the advice of his doctor, he underwent surgery to remove his prostate, a walnut-sized gland that sits beneath the bladder around the urethra in men. This cured him of cancer.

In a 2016 interview with Today, he admitted that he experiences some common side effects of a prostatectomy, including occasional incontinence and problems with sexual function.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, with more than 50,000 new diagnoses and 12,000 deaths each year.

In the US, 26,000 men die from the disease each year.

Sofia Vergara

Sofia Vergara, star of Modern Family and the new TV miniseries Griselda, didn’t openly discuss her battle with cancer until 20 years after her treatment.

The now 52-year-old actress was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at age 28 after doctors discovered a lump in her neck during a routine checkup.

But she only shared this publicly during a broadcast of Stand Up to Cancer in 2021.

The following year, she shared a photo of herself taken at her first acting class, after undergoing treatment.

In the 2022 post, she wrote: “At 28, ‘Cancer’ was not a word I expected to hear.”

‘It was just a routine check-up. But the doctors found a lump in my throat, and that word became part of my story.

“I spent countless hours in radiation treatments and ultimately in operating rooms. Today I can call myself a cancer survivor.”

The thyroid is a gland located in the front of the neck that is responsible for producing hormones that control the way the body uses energy. Hormones produced by the thyroid affect almost every organ in the body and regulate many of the body’s most important functions.

Thyroid cancer may not cause any symptoms at first, but as the cancer grows it can cause swelling of the neck, changes in the voice, difficulty swallowing, a lump that can be felt through the skin of the neck, and pain in the neck and throat.

It is most common in people between the ages of 30 and 60 and older. Women are three times more likely to get it than men.

In the UK there are about 3,900 new cases each year and in the US about 44,020.

Helen McCory

Helen McCory, star of Peaker Blinders and Harry Potter, swore her friends to secrecy as she underwent cancer treatments while continuing her charity work, just weeks before her death at the age of 52.

The actress, who died of breast cancer in April 2021, appeared on television to promote the Prince’s Trust just six weeks before her death.

According to Carrie Cracknell, who directed Helen McCrory in a stage production of Medea, she also shared her secret struggle with “very, very few people.”

McCory, who has been married to actor Damian Lewis since 2007 and has two children with him, wanted to focus on her family and charity work, in addition to her acting, rather than on her illness.

Breast cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer in the world.

There are more than 55,000 new cases each year in the UK and the disease claims the lives of 11,500 women. In the US it affects 266,000 people a year and kills 40,000.

Usually, the first symptom is a painless lump in the breast. However, most lumps are not cancerous, but fluid-filled cysts, which are benign.

The first place breast cancer usually spreads is to the lymph nodes in the armpit. If this happens, you will get a swelling or lump in the armpit.

Louis Walsh

Former X Factor star Louis Walsh also revealed he had been diagnosed with a “rare” form of blood cancer four years after the health crisis in 2020.

The 72-year-old spoke about his health when he starred in Celebrity Big Brother this year alongside Levi and Ekin-Su, confessing that no one knew he was ill.

When the pair asked him how he had spent the lockdown, he said: ‘I was ill, and I don’t think anyone knew I was ill. I had cancer. A mild form, a rare one.’

He was diagnosed with Waldenström’s disease (also called lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma), a rare form of low-grade lymphoma (a form of bone marrow cancer).

In most cases this is caused by the presence of an excessive amount of abnormal protein in the blood.

But he is now well again after receiving treatment in Dublin.

According to Macmillan, symptoms of this rare cancer include fatigue, paleness, easy bruising and weight loss.

In the UK, around 350 people are diagnosed with cancer each year. In the US, it is around 1,000 to 1,500 people.

Jonnie Irwin

The A Place In The Sun star confirmed in November that his lung cancer had spread to his brain, after first being diagnosed in 2020.

He died in February at the age of 50.

But before his death, he revealed how he kept his battle with cancer a secret for two years to “pay the bills” and provide for his family.

He told The Sun: ‘I had to live with it as a secret. It was really hard living with such a huge cloud over me and pretending to everyone.

‘I was able to work for the first year and a half. Unfortunately, one of the companies claimed they could not insure me and did not renew my contract. That left a huge gap in my income.

“I felt like I was thrown on the scrap heap. Within a week they had recruited someone and then I saw someone else doing my job.”

According to Cancer Research UK, cancer that has spread to another part of the body is called a secondary cancer or metastasis.

Not all lung cancers spread, but if the cancer does spread, there are certain parts of the body where the cancer is likely to spread, such as the brain, bones, and liver.

According to the NHS, headaches, seizures, vision and speech problems can all be signs of a brain tumour.

Coughing, shortness of breath and loss of appetite are symptoms of lung cancer.