Desert Island Discs host Lauren Laverne has told Good Housekeeping UK she's loving life more than ever - after finally putting her cancer hell behind her. The BBC radio presenter, 46, dropped the bombshell she had cancer, without revealing what type, on Instagram in August 2024 reassuring worried fans caught early and that she "expected to make a full recovery".

Just before Christmas she said the fight had gone well and she would return to guest host The One Show "after taking some time off to get better". Now cancer-free, she's told Good Housekeeping UK how the trauma of last year filled her with a fresh determination to embrace all life has to offer.

The mother-of-two explained: "One of the really big things I've learned is that it's all life. It's all part and parcel and texture - a real life is lots of big experiences.

"And the truth of that is, like it or not, going through big stuff expands your emotional vocabulary. I've learned a massive amount and I hope I'm a better person now.

"And actually, I probably love my life more now than I did then, because I appreciate everything about it."

On catching her cancer early, shortly after losing her mother to terminal cancer in 2022, Laverne said the cruel disease is something she had "always been anxious about".

She added: "Especially if you have family members who've been through it, you have a sort of watchfulness about your own health, which is obviously why I got tested for everything and why it was picked up, thank God, so early on.

"The previous six years had been pretty bonkers - and I mean good and bad. In 2018, I turned 40 and that was the year I got Desert Island Discs and the [BBC Radio 6 Music] breakfast show.

"Two weeks after I got Desert Island Discs, my dad became ill and died."

Last summer Laverne said her cancer had been discovered "unexpectedly during a screening test" and urged anyone who was "avoiding a test or putting off an appointment" to get checked.

She began filling in for Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs in 2018, later taking over as permanent host - interviewing the likes of Cillian Murphy, Steven Spielberg, Rebel Wilson, Delia Smith, Kate Mosse and John Legend.

On her overwhelming relief at getting the 'all clear' she has now told the magazine: "I think it's only when the storm passes that you realise what you'd been holding in.

"The day I was discharged, we [she and her husband, Graeme] managed to get downstairs, and Graeme got me into the car, and we didn't even switch it on. We just sat in the car and both burst into tears and cried."

* The full interview - - can be read now in the May issue.