Sarah Beeny discusses her personal battle with breast cancer

Sarah Beeny has shared her personal battle with breast cancer and admitted she was afraid of the disease after her mother passed away from it.

The TV presenter, 51, revealed the news of her diagnosis in August 2022 and was cleared in April.

Her mother Ann, her father Richard’s first wife, died of cancer when Sarah was only 10 years old.

Sarah revealed that she was always worried about facing the same diagnosis and despite medical advances, she had always assumed it was like being given a death sentence.

Speaking of receiving the diagnosis, Sarah shared radio times: ‘How am I going to arrange the funeral? What kind of box do I need? Those were the first things that went through my head.’

She added: “My second son Charlie pointed out that we actually know a lot more people who have beaten cancer than have died from it, but when you hear the word you think of the people you know who have died.”

“We’re all a little hampered by historical views that aren’t necessarily based on the realities of today’s treatment.”

In the UK, breast cancer survival rates have doubled over the last 50 years, according to Cancer Research UK, partly due to improvements in treatment and also earlier detection through screening.

The presenter was all-clear in April, but will use drugs and remain ‘vigilant’ for the next ten years.

Speaking on ITV’s Lorraine about getting everything safe, she said: ‘It’s fine. It’s weird. It’s a bit like her [the doctors] go ‘that’s it then’ and that’s the end.

“And you go ‘how do you know?” and they say ‘well, we don’t just think so.’

“It’s a weird ending – you feel like there’s an important moment coming.”

It comes after Sarah appeared on The One Show and shared how she had “lived” with the fear of death for a long time, but felt strongly during her treatment.

She explained of her motivation for filming the documentary that “one of the reasons was my mother died of breast cancer when I was 10, and so I was always afraid of it.”

“When I turned 39, when my mother died, I thought ‘here we are’ and when I turned 40 I thought ‘oh, that’s weird’ and then I turned 50 and I was diagnosed.”

“So I’ve lived with this fear for so long and actually once I realized how the treatment works, it’s not nearly as bad as the fear.

“And I thought if I can talk about a) it’s on my mind and b) if I can make it less scary for other people and not make them afraid to go to the doctor because the sooner the diagnosis the better result.’

In March, Sarah revealed that her new platinum hair was dyed by her son after her breast cancer treatment.

The mother-of-four shaved her hair after clumps fell out when she started chemotherapy last year.

After it started growing back, Sarah took to Instagram to post a series of snaps documenting the process of her hair transformation.

One image showed her son grinning as he applied the dye to her hair, while another revealed the product she was using.

She wrote: “Thank you for all your sweet lovely comments on my last post – Unfortunately my hair [is] natural hair not platinum blonde…..!!!!’

While Sarah didn’t want to make a “big deal” about telling her kids her cancer news, she said she considered not telling her husband after 20 years “so it didn’t seem real.”

The Property Ladder presenter shares sons Billy, 18, Charlie, 16, Rafferty, 14, and Laurie, 12, with husband Graham Swift.

Sarah has previously spoken openly about losing her mother at a young age, telling the Daily Mail in 2020: ‘Death is hard for a child to hold their own but I was close to Diccon [my brother] and my father, and go on and on.’

“The only positive thing about losing her when I was so young is that she will always be perfect to me.”