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16th March 2024
08:30am GMT
Louis Walsh shocked viewers of last night's episode of Celebrity Big Brother by revealing that he had been diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer known as waldenstrom macroglobulinaemia.
The former X Factor judge told his housemates on the show about his battle with the disease, and described the health scare as a "reality check".
Speaking with fellow housemates Levi Roots and Ekin-Su, Walsh disclosed that he received the diagnosis during lockdown and he went into detail about the effect that the period of sickness had on him.
“I was sick, and I think nobody knew I was sick," he said. "I had cancer – a mild version, a rare one, in my blood.
“I didn’t even know I had it until I went to the hospital. They checked me and then they found it.”
The 71 year old was the subject of backlash earlier this week following comments he made on the show about former X factor contestants Jedward.
Coronation Street star Colson Smith asked Walsh "what were Jedward like", to which the Irishman responded "they were vile".
This led to a response on social media from Jedward who described their one-time manager as a "cold hearted b****d" and claimed he didn't even send them flowers when their mother died.
The music manager and TV personality talked about how the cancer affected him mentally, and assured his housemates that he had made a full recovery.
"It’s just up here, even when I go past a hospital I almost get sick," he said. "It’s all gone, I’m fine.
"It was just the shock of being sick and that word – nobody wants that word. I have it blocked out, a reality check.
"You see so many people sick and it’s terrible. In my world it was all about pop music and all that. I didn’t think of anybody getting sick or anything like that. And that was like, wow, reality check – you’re in the real world."
A friend of Walsh's revealed to Mirror that the effects of the illness are likely to be the reason why he has spent so much time sleeping in the Celebrity Big Brother house.
Many viewers noticed that Louis seemed to lack energy and seemed feeble, and some had expressed their concern on social media.
The friend explained: "Louis is in remission currently but you can see how frail he is and that he has lost a lot of weight. It’s also the reason why he’s sleeping so much, it all took a lot out of him.
"The whole experience was the main driver behind signing up for the show. He’d been really ill and just wanted to enjoy life again and thought ‘what the hell’."
Roughly 350 people in the UK are diagnosed with waldenstrom macroglobulinaemia each year. It is a slow-growing type of blood cancer.
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