The longtime superstar and entertainment icon revealed her heartbreaking cancer diagnosis to the world just shortly after she canceled a series of concerts so that she could focus on treatment and overcome the disease.
This was back in May 2017 – and Olivia Newton-John had explained that doctors had discovered metastasized breast cancer at the base of her spine. And in a new interview, she’s opening up about the one cancer diagnosis she kept hidden – for years.
#OliviaNewtonJohn opens up about her heartbreaking cancer diagnosis. #PrayForONJ pic.twitter.com/Z3IlMiKVrK
— FanzForever (@forever_fanz) September 10, 2018
“Olivia Newton-John is reluctantly postponing her June U.S. and Canadian concert tour dates. The back pain that initially caused her to postpone the first half of her concert tour, has turned out to be breast cancer that has metastasized to the sacrum,“ a press release from 2017 read, in part.
During that part of her life and exploring treatment options for the newest cancer battle, Newton-John did not grant interviews – instead, her team explained she was expecting to pick things back up later in the year and go from there.
Now, Australia’s Sunday Night has shared one of the very first interviews with Newton-John since that diagnosis, and their reporter Alex Cullen, traveled to her estate in Santa Barbara, California for this one-of-a-kind sit down.
Olivia Newton-John was first diagnosed with breast cancer way back in 1992. She successfully beat that fight with this terrible disease and went on to create a hospital and wellness center in Melbourne, Australia.
The Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre has been a beacon of hope for many Australians who are faced with the disease – and Newton-John is known to stop by the hospital and visit patients on occasion.
In this new interview, Newton-John opened up for the very first time about her second cancer diagnosis in 2013 – the one she kept secret from the world, even when she came out about her current fight against the breast cancer that was discovered in her spine.
Olivia Newton-John reveals she's battling cancer for the third time https://t.co/TYt3VxmCPU pic.twitter.com/5DCNn1nnwt
— billboard (@billboard) September 9, 2018
On a drive to visit her sister Rona just weeks before she died from an aggressive form of brain cancer, Newton-John was involved in a car accident…and the medical discovery nearly shattered her world.
“…and the seatbelt hit me really hard,” Newton-John told Sunday Night in an emotional reveal. “And a lump came up and I went to see the doctor. We thought it was something to do with the accident…Time went on and it turned out to be more than that.”
The lump in her right shoulder was discovered to be a return of the breast cancer that she thought she’d beaten – more than 20 years earlier.
She chose to keep this new diagnosis a secret from the world.
“The first time I talked about it…and the second time I thought ‘Well, I don’t really need to share this. It’s not something I need to share with people. It’s my life’ – and I just decided to keep it to myself.”
While she kept it to herself, she treated it successfully using conventional therapies and natural remedies to boost her immune system – but little did she know the cancer would return in 2017 after it spread to her lower back.
Our thoughts and prayers are with this international icon and wonderful human who has worked so hard to help many others in their own cancer battles.
Watch her full interview with Sunday Night below.