Dame Julie Walters, 69, reveals she had stage three bowel cancer

Dame Julie Walters has revealed she had stage three bowel cancer – but has now been given the all clear following chemotherapy. 

The Mamma Mia star said she thought doctors must have been mistaken when she first heard the news.

She told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire she was diagnosed with stage three bowel cancer just 18 months ago after two primary tumours were discovered in her large intestine. 

Dame Julie, 69, said she had visited the doctor with indigestion and ‘slight discomfort’ a year earlier but later came back suffering with stomach pain, heartburn and vomiting. 

She underwent a CT scan after being referred to a gastric surgeon and, while she was on set filming her upcoming film The Secret Garden, received a phone call asking her to see the specialist who told her it might be cancer.   

‘I was still thinking, ‘That’s ridiculous, he must have made a mistake’. I couldn’t believe it,’ Dame Julie said.

She remembers telling her husband Grant Roffey. ‘I’ll never forget his face. Tears came into his eyes,’ Dame Julie said. 

The actress said she always had hope she’d make a full recovery after an optimistic prognosis from doctors, but while waiting for surgery she thought: ‘Well, I may not come round from the anaesthetic.’

Dame Julie explained she had ’30cm taken out of my colon’ in hospital and felt ‘absolutely marvellous’ after coming round from anaesthetic and still feeling its effects.

‘I said to the night nurse, “Is Love Island on?” – because we were talking about it – and we watched it together.

‘It was only a couple of days later I thought, I feel exhausted, and a bit low actually.’