It’s an evening for celebration as Davina McCall gathers with celebrity friends and HELLO! magazine to mark her place at the top of our inaugural Second Act Power List. We know we’re celebrating her status as an inspiration to midlife women, her recovery from brain surgery earlier this year and her recent happy engagement. What we don’t realise is we are also celebrating her successful, secret breast cancer surgery, just a week or two earlier, something she bravely chose to share with fans this past weekend, in an emotional Instagram post.
The inaugural HELLO! Power List event is a night to honour inspiring women who are redefining what it means to be in the second act of life. And at the heart of the celebrations is Davina, 58, who epitomises what it means to be a powerful woman in midlife. A year on from life-saving brain surgery and very shortly after her breast cancer surgery, she is thrilled by the news that her campaign with the Menopause Mandate is set to change the lives of millions of women in the UK, after the NHS agreed to include menopause screening in its health checks for over-40s. “We did it,” she says, leaping across the room to hug two fellow Power Listers and menopause campaigners, the writer Mariella Frostrup and the former Olympian Michelle Griffith-Robinson.
Presenter, activist, mother, author, survivor: there are many words to describe Davina. The latter all the more poignant with the news of her most recent health challenge. But now, thanks to her partner, the hairdresser Michael Douglas, she can add fiancée to the list. Happy to shout about her “ridiculously lovely” news, Davina announces: “I’m engaged,” to the surprise of her friend Dame Denise Lewis, who scoops her up in a congratulatory hug. “It’s really exciting. We’re both very happy,” she beams, talking to HELLO! about the proposal for the first time since the couple’s engagement was confirmed in September, after Michael popped the question in July.
“It was a total surprise. Michael is very funny and had spent the past two years getting down on bended knee and tying an imaginary shoelace on my finger,” she says. “He got down on bended knee on the beach in Ibiza and I was like: ‘Is this real?’ I was terrified that if I said yes, he’d be joking. But he recited something he had prepared – which I’ll keep secret – and then asked me. He put a lot of thought and consideration into it, and I respected that.” Even in the most private of moments, Davina still found herself in front of a live audience. “We were hugging, kissing and crying, and heard these two swimmers going: ‘Yay, congratulations!’ ”
Welcome to the family
The couple, who have been together for six years, met on the set of Big Brother more than 20 years ago. They have five children between them from previous relationships, and Michael called Davina’s children – Holly, Tilly and Chester – to ask permission to marry her. “He joked to the kids and said: ‘Do you want me as a stepdad?’ Everyone is happy for us. Tilly is home from Australia at the moment, so we’ve had a little family thing at home. It’s been so lovely.”
As the news of Davina’s engagement ripples around the room, Jo Wood picks up her hand to check for a diamond, but is left disappointed. “I haven’t got a ring. I always said I don’t want one,” she says, wiggling her fingers, naked apart from a thin band with an evil eye. “When we do get married, it will be very small and private. Getting married at this stage of life is so different, the second time around. It’s a big deal.
“I don’t think either of us were sure about getting married again; we were just having a lovely time,” she adds. “But we had a very big beginning of the year, with a lot of s*** that was going down. As I used to say in the Big Brother house, I’ve been on quite a journey.” This week marks 12 months since Davina had surgery to remove a benign colloid cyst in her brain; she takes my finger and rubs it along the deep groove of her scar so that I can appreciate the seriousness of the operation.
© Simão NogueiraDavina’s health update
“It still blows my mind – excuse the pun – that [brain surgeon] Kevin O’Neill has seen my brain. All of this Farrah Fawcett hair is scar hair,” she says, fluffing up her new strands. “I’m lucky I have Michael, who can give me a fabulous blow-dry.” The first few months after her operation were more chaotic than Davina let on. Her short-term memory was on a 30-second loop, which she navigated by writing notes to herself every morning.
“I don’t think either of us were sure about getting married again; we were just having a lovely time. But we had a very big beginning of the year, with a lot of s*** that was going down”
“I started working again on [ITV show] Long Lost Family and that saved me. My long-term memory worked, and because I had been filming it for 15 years, it was like an old friend that I knew.” Gradually, she has noticed improvements in her memory. “Things started changing in June and then I had another big breakthrough in September. I’m really good now,” she says. On the anniversary of her surgery, Davina isn’t planning a celebration, just a moment of thanks that she is still here. “It’s funny coming up to an anniversary. It’s good, as you’ve got something to compare with and say: ‘Look how far I’ve come.’
© Hogan Media/Shutterstock“What this operation showed me was that I’ve had a good life,” she says. Words that have fresh meaning since we discovered she was also just a week or two out of surgery for breast cancer.
“I’m grateful for every minute, because I know it might go, and I’m all right with that. I don’t want to die, obviously – I love life – but I’m not obsessed with dying now.” What does being in her Second Act mean to her? “It’s about understanding your weaknesses and apologising when necessary, trying to be a better person and helping people, but not trying to be perfect, which I spent a lot of my life doing.
“I’m the happiest I have ever been. I’m in such a good space,” she adds. “And it’s age that’s given me that, because it is experience; you don’t get the experience without ageing. Some people learn quickly and some people don’t. It’s taken me until my fifties to learn enough to make myself feel really, deeply content.”
© HELLO!Pick up the latest issue of HELLO! on sale in the UK now for the full Second Act Power List party coverage. You can subscribe to HELLO! to get the magazine delivered free to your door every week or purchase the digital edition online via our Apple or Google apps.
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