EXCLUSIVE: TV legend Davina McCall says she bounced back from tough times with 'perfect' new husband.19:39, 01 Jul 2026Davina McCall was too hard on herself in the past. She admits she worried a lot about being a good mother, balancing her workload as a TV host too whilst also going through the menopause and facing other illnesses head on.‌After breast cancer and brain surgery she is giving herself a break and enjoying being newly married to partner Michael Douglas. “I have recently given myself a big cuddle about getting through the last year and a half,” she says.‌“It was the hardest year and a half of my whole life, the end of 2024 and the whole of 2025 was impossibly difficult, but it ended with a wedding, and that was really beautiful.”‌Davina, now 58, is not exaggerating when she says she has been through a lot. The worst of it was when she went under the knife in late 2024 to remove a colloid cyst that could have put her in a coma if she’d not had left it untouched. That involved part of her skull being removed to take out the tumour.After that she was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2025, and told fans in April she had received the "all clear" following surgery.‌Helping her back though all of this was partner and hair stylist Michael. He cared for her after her time in hospital from surgery, including breaking their usual rules to tenderly help her look her best.“Pet peeve about him? I literally haven’t got one,” Davina says, of the man she married in December in front of 10 of their family and friends.“I fancy him so much. He is like the perfect man. He is everything. He is sensitive and strong. Yeah, he's amazing. And he's great at hair. Can I tell you something really sweet?‌“I never ever ever ask him to do my hair, ever. It's his day job, and he does not want to come home from work and do my hair. I would never ask him to do that ever.‌“But, after I had brain surgery, he did my hair quite often, because it was mental. I had scar hair, all these bits of hair here are from the scar, and so he used to blow dry them for me.“He would go ‘do you want me to blow dry your hair’. And I would say ‘oh yes please’. It is such a treat, I can never do it as well as he can. He is perfect.”And then even when it was time to return to TV work, Davina says Michael was the calm reassuring voice pushing back against all the doubts she had herself.‌Davina, who has now been on our screens for over 30 years, recalls: “It's a wonderful job. And when I had my brain surgery a year and a half ago, the first job I did was Long Lost Family, and I didn't want to go back to work.“I was terrified because I just thought I can't do it, I can't remember things."And normally they get me the notes the night before, but I asked long lost family ‘please could you get them to me like four days earlier?’.‌“And they got them to me four days early and I was doing mind maps, like circling a person looking at this, and then I'd have to tell them all about their family that we'd found, and I do lines coming out here, and Michael kept saying to me ‘you're gonna enjoy going back to work’."And I'd be looking at him going ‘yeah’, there was something in me that knew he was right, but I was also really angry with him, because I was like, 'You don't understand, I'm terrified, you don't know what it feels like up here, I can't remember anything’.‌“And I did the first day of Long Lost Family, and I remembered all of it, because it had become a long term memory, because four days of learning it, it bedded in. And I called him from the car, and I was like ‘I've been really annoyed with you, but thank you so much. It was the best day of my life. I'm back. I feel like I'm worth something, like I feel purpose again’.“You know it was that I'm not just a patient, I am now part of society again. I'm back.”Last year on her Begin Again podcast, Davina told how she had written ‘letters of wishes’ to her children Holly, Tilly and Chester, whom she shares with her ex-husband Matthew Robinson, in case she had died during her brain surgery.‌Thankfully the letters and the Will she wrote were not needed, but the whole experience of going through such a big operation has clearly given Davina a different perspective on life.Listening to her talk, having known her since the days of hosting Big Brother, she seems even more fearless and also keen to explore a new project on the subject of celebrating life and preparing for death.Speaking at the Leadenhall Live festival, she says: “I would love to talk more about living a life that you love, so that you can die happy. I feel like dying is the last big taboo.‌“I had gone to hospital when I was going to have my brain surgery and come to terms with it, well, I went into the operating theatre and I said ‘you guys are all brilliant at your jobs. Thank you, all of you for being here. I just want to let you know, I'm going to lie down here, and I'm going to let go of the outcome, and you do your best’.“And then the anesthetist put in the anesthetic, and as I was falling asleep, and I just said ‘love, love, love’ all the way, and I was okay with not making it, but I'd got my life in order.“I think we are all so obsessed with longevity and getting eight hours sleep, good quality sleep, and turn off your phone for an hour before then, and don't eat the banoffee pie, and don't go out clubbing if you're working.‌“And it's like f**king hell on your deathbed, you are gonna go, I wish I'd gone clubbing, I wish I'd eaten a freaking banoffee pie, I wish I'd snogged the girl or a boy. I wish I'd gone naked swimming at midnight in Parma."Don't forget this while you're trying to live long, to actually live and enjoy your life, that is like how to die happy.“Keep your side of the street clean. Apologise when you fucked up. Love the people that need loving. Don't hold grudges. It's not worth it. Let it go, you know. Make amends. You don't want to find on your deathbed that there are things that you haven't done or haven't said.”‌And turning 60 in a couple of years is also unlikely to daunt her anymore after what she has been through.This week Davina will be with her best friend Sarah Hiscox as she publishes a new book about her journey through addiction and finding love again. But in many ways it mirrors Davina’s own story.Now both clean and a bit older and wiser, the pair are excited to go into the next decade of their lives ready for more late night dancing and adventures.‌Davina says: “We’ve been through everything together. My addiction, her addiction, divorce, falling in love again, everything.“I am reaching an age where I feel like I can sort of be who I want to be, and I'm not frightened of other people's judgment anymore, and I spent so long caring what people thought of me. I've always said this, I'm half nun, half wild child!“I was so worried about everything, and it just doesn't matter.”Article continues belowDavina McCall has written a foreword for new book The Beginning and End of Everything, by Sarah Hiscox, which is out today (July 2).