Davina McCall has said she could not remember her own name following brain surgery.
The TV presenter said she suffered from symptoms similar to “advanced Alzheimer’s” after the operation to remove a benign tumour in 2024.
“After I’d had my brain tumour taken out, I had advanced Alzheimer’s, so I couldn’t remember anything,” she told Paloma Faith’s podcast Mad, Sad and Bad, adding that 2025 had been the “hardest” year of her life.
The former Big Brother host said a member of staff would ask her each day whether she could remember her name, to which she would respond: “I don’t know.”
The presenter revealed in November 2024 that doctors had found a rare 14mm brain tumour, called a colloid cyst, during a health check as part of her menopause advocacy work.
The operation was successful and in April last year she told followers that her final MRI scan had shown the tumour had disappeared.
“When I came out of the operation, I didn’t know I’d had an operation,” the 58-year-old recalled, adding that it took her six months before she could watch a film because she “couldn’t remember what had happened in the movie 15 minutes before”.
“[When reading] a book, I couldn’t remember the page before,” she said. She recollects her husband, Michael Douglas, a hair stylist, would leave the room to go to the toilet and on his return she would say: “‘Oh my God, you’re here’, and I didn’t know he’d been there.”
‘Music healed me’
McCall’s memory showed signs of improvement in October 2025 with the help of music.
“I did singing lessons. That was my mind physio. Music healed me and last October was the first time I woke up and went, ‘Oh my God, I remember what I did yesterday’,” she said.
While still recovering from brain surgery in November last year, McCall revealed that she had also undergone surgery for breast cancer.
“It was very, very small, so I got it very, very early, which is incredibly lucky, but I am so relieved to have had it removed, and to know that it hasn’t spread,” she said after undergoing a lumpectomy.
McCall said she was driven to have it checked after seeing posters urging women to “check your breasts” while working on ITV’s Lorraine show.
The presenter previously suggested surviving her brain tumour was the “greatest thing” that had ever happened to her.
In May last year, she told Women’s Health UK: “When I got this brain tumour, I said to Michael: ‘If I make it, this will be the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me’.
“Because of the learnings, yes – and because of the places I’ve had to go to deal with it.”
Part of skull removed
A benign brain tumour is not cancerous, but it can still cause health issues if it presses on vital structures such as nerves and blood vessels as it grows.
Non-cancerous brain tumours can affect people of any age, but are more common in adults over the age of 50.
The NHS says symptoms can include persistent headaches, seizures, blurred or double vision, drowsiness, changes in behaviour or personality, and problems with speech, movement and balance.
The craniotomy McCall underwent involved part of the skull being removed to remove the tumour.
McCall was awarded an MBE in the King’s birthday honours for services to broadcasting in 2023 and was given a special recognition prize at the National Television Awards in 2024 for her broadcasting career.