EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW AND PHOTOS
READY TO SHARE HER SECRET
REVEALS HER CANCER HAS RETURNED — BUT SHE’S STILL LIVING LIFE TO THE FULL
Having a conversation with Trisha Goddard is like riding on a rollercoaster. It runs at high speed with dips and peaks, punctuated by loud, throaty laughs. And although we are speaking on a video call, not in person, her exuberance and energy fill the room.
Apart from her cropped hair and slight frame, there is no indication that the TV presenter is once again living with cancer – news that she has kept private up until now, telling only a handful of people. Journeying alongside her, and holding her hand throughout, is her husband Allen, with whom she lives in Connecticut and who joins us for this exclusive interview.
In 2008, Trisha, now 66, was diagnosed with, and recovered from, breast cancer. Nineteen months ago, she discovered that it had returned, this time to her bones, specifically her right hip. She has been diagnosed with secondary breast cancer – also known as metastatic or stage 4 breast cancer – for which there is treatment, but no cure.
“It’s not going to go away,” she says, simply. “And with that knowledge comes grief, and fear. But I must keep enjoying what I have always enjoyed.”
Her decision to speak publicly about her illness is, in part, to relieve the strain of keeping it to herself. “I can’t lie; I can’t keep making up stories. It gets to a stage, after a year and a half, when keeping a secret becomes more of a burden than anything else.
“I’m nervous,” she adds. “But it needed to be done.”
TACKLING TABOOS
Fiercely proud, Trisha, who presents a weekly programme on TalkTV and works on special assignments for CNN, is determined not to be “a poster girl for cancer”, as she describes it. “It’s not who I am. It’s not why I’m here.
“Also, I didn’t want to read words like ‘dying’ and ‘terminal’ or ‘battling’,” she says, shuddering at the clichés usually associated with a cancer diagnosis. “Or ‘inspirational’, because it’s all b******s.”
Having been a successful broadcast journalist for almost 40 years, she also feared losing her job (although she has continued to work, not missing a day, since her diagnosis) and being perceived as someone she isn’t.
