‘Why I kept my CANCER A SECRET'

Dame Julie Walters opens up on why she hid her devastating diagnosis from her family and the world.

- HAYLEY MINN

Dame Julie Walters is one of the most well-loved, funny and talented actresses in our country, having starred in a range of hit films, from Billy Elliot to Mamma Mia! and the Harry Potter series.

So it came as a huge shock earlier this year when she revealed she’d been secretly recovering from bowel cancer.

But it wasn’t just the public that 70-year-old Julie was hiding her devastating diagnosis from. Julie didn’t even tell her daughter, Maisie, or her two older brothers, Tommy and Kevin, until after she had gone through the operation to remove the tumours from her lower intestine. Instead, she told Maisie she needed to have her appendix removed.

Julie explained to the Telegraph Magazine, ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of everyone worrying – particularly my daughter. I didn’t want to upset people around me. I wanted to keep it small.’

The only person who did know was Julie’s husband, Grant Roffey, who she told in the car after he had waited for her to come out of her doctor’s appointment.