Nicki Chapman reveals she can’t talk about her brain tumour ordeal without crying and locks memories of her health woes in a mental ‘filing cabinet’

Nicki Chapman has revealed she can’t talk about her brain tumour without crying.

The 57-year-old presenter revealed in a poignant new interview that she files away memories of her health problems in a mental “filing cabinet” to help her cope with her feelings.

The former Pop Idol judge was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor in 2019. The tumor was the size of a small golf ball and she underwent surgery to remove part of it.

In March 2022, she revealed that the message had magically disappeared and shared how she burst into tears when she heard the news.

She has now told The Times of her ordeal: ‘It makes me cry. I put my own tumor in a filing cabinet. You do that with a lot of things in life — it’s always going to be there, but I don’t have to keep opening it. I don’t let it define me.’

Nicki added: ‘I’ve had a great lifeand when the bomb of the tumor fell, I thought: I don’t want to give up this life. But if this is it? Well — how lucky have I been?

“And that sounds so shiny, but I was born with the glass half full. I found the strength to deal with it. It was either take me now or let me live.”

In 2022 Nicki publicly revealed for the first time that she was shocked but also happy about the news that the tumor, which she named Bert, had disappeared four months earlier.

She said on the White Wine Question Time podcast: ‘In October I had my annual scan with my fantastic consultant, who knows I adore him.

‘I regularly tell him in front of my husband how much I love him and the NHS, which has taken and continues to take such good care of me.

“And he called me, and I was standing in a field, because these days we do phone appointments – we don’t do it face to face. So he called me with my last scans, and I was standing in a field and the Escape to the Country crew had gone.”

She continued, “I knew I was going to get the call, so they moved away and gave me some privacy. And I’m looking at all these pigs.

‘The wonderful consultant called me and said, “The tumor, Nicki, is gone. For the moment it’s gone.”

‘I was sobbing. And he said, “Nicki, Nicki.” I said, “No, no, no.” I said, “Do we know why?” He said, “No, these things happen.”

‘I’m getting a little weepy just thinking about it. And they don’t know why. And of course I still have to be monitored, because these kinds of things have habits that change.

“So we take the good when we can. Always looking for the win in every situation. So Bert is gone for the moment and in the nicest way I hope that b****”d never comes back.”

Nicki also reflected on when she was first diagnosed, when her husband told her she seemed “high.”

Nicki explained that she was relieved that she… was told she would survive – and she was even willing to lose the sight in one eye in return, if necessary – but the day before her surgery she re-did her will anyway.

She explained why part of the tumor had to hang over her like a dark cloud: ‘They had to leave a piece of him because of where it was. It was too dangerous to take out for any reason.

‘At the moment it’s gone. There’s no trace left – just the scar tissue – so the NHS will continue to monitor me and I’ll happily go to any appointments they ask me to.

“But yeah, absolutely life changing. And I wouldn’t want anyone to go through that. So many people are and do, unfortunately, and I know I’m lucky.”

She continued: ‘And thankfully it was benign, but even living with it wasn’t great. What am I going to look like? What am I going to be like? I made my will the day before I had surgery.

“The first thing I said to my husband was, ‘That’s okay, we’re going to redraw the will.’ And he was so brilliant.

“I’ve only told a few people because it’s life-changing. It’s the biggest thing. It’s amazing what you accept in life. You find strength you didn’t know you had. We knew it was big. They said, ‘You’ve got a big tumor.’ They thought I’d had a stroke.

‘But it’s every day again and you don’t know if you’re going to make it or not.’

Nicki, who is married to music executive Dave Shackleton, added: ‘We came out and Shack said, “Are you sure you’re OK? You seem to be quite high.”

‘And I thought, “Shack, he told me I’m going to live — unless something goes wrong in that operating room, which can happen, I’m going to live. I guess I’m visually impaired or something.”

‘After my surgery everything went in my favour and six weeks later I was already filming.

‘I did discuss it with my advisor. I went to see him and said: “I really want to go back to work, I thought I would be sick for more than three months.”

‘And he said “yeah, me too”. I said “am I crazy to go back to filming?” I said “they’ll take care of me”. And he said “you know what, if I couldn’t do surgery for six weeks I’d go crazy and I see the same thing with you”. So I did get signed off.

‘The only thing I have is that I have trouble reading now, which is a small price to pay for my health. My concentration is not as good as it used to be. I find it hard to read books – I don’t know why. Apart from that I take every day. I am very grateful.

‘The NHS is incredible and I’m going to go out and win. It’s not going to define me. I’m going to get on with my life.

“That’s important to me. Everyone deals with everything in a completely different way, but for me it’s not Nicki Chapman with a brain tumor, it’s always about being myself.”

Nicki first discovered she was ill while working on the BBC programme Escape to the Country. She went to do a voice-over and couldn’t remember the name of the executive producer, whom she had known for 15 years.

She later said: ‘I came back and did a photo shoot and couldn’t see anything, I did a voice-over and I couldn’t talk, nothing came out. It lasted about five to 10 minutes.’