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.
Trisha's cancer diagnosis
"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," she says. "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."
Fiercely proud, Trisha, who presents a weekly programme on TalkTV and works on special assignments for CNN, is determined not to become what she describes as "a poster girl for cancer". "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 as she uses the clichés usually associated with a cancer diagnosis. "Or 'inspirational', because it's all b******s."
Media intrusion into her family life
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 most certainly isn't.
"My worry is that people will start seeing me as a frail little thing, and that if [the news] got out, I'd be judged, or people would change the way they are with me, or that I wouldn't work," she says. "I'm a journalist; I don't want to be 'the story'. I don't want to be interviewing someone and for them to say to me: 'I'm so sorry.'"
She doesn't "do" self-pity – "I'm not that sort of person" – and was determined to avoid the media intrusion that affected her treatment for breast cancer 16 years ago.
"I went through a pretty horrific time. The press was vile, we had to get security at the hospital, my kids were traumatised," she says, referring to her two grown-up daughters from her second marriage, Billie, 34, and Madison, 29. "It was a traumatic experience for everyone involved and one of the reasons I ended up on this side of the pond."
How she discovered the cancer had returned
Trisha's secondary cancer was discovered, purely by accident, in July 2022. She had always been active – she used to do weight training in the gym three times a week, ice-skate regularly (having developed a passion for the sport after appearing on Dancing on Ice in 2020) and run – but when she kept incurring injuries, she suspected she might need a hip replacement.
One day, while running upstairs at home, she slipped and had a serious fall. "I was upside down, my legs behind me, and clinging on to the banister. I went to move my leg – and I'm not a wimp – but I'd never felt pain like it. I now know it was shattered," she says. After lying alone for three hours, she eventually managed to alert her neighbours, who called an ambulance. She was met by Allen at the hospital.
"She was in acute pain," he says, picking up the story. "Then a young resident – like a junior doctor – came in and said: 'Oh, it looks as though you broke your femur and smashed your right hip, which is full of cancer cells. And you have a tumour. It doesn't look good.'"
Trisha adds: "That was the first I heard that the cancer had come back. And the first thing I asked was: 'Am I going to die?'"
Her treatment for cancer
She was operated on the next evening. Biopsies were sent off and she underwent a partial hip replacement, which involved having a titanium femur inserted. The cancer, it transpired, was localised in her hip, and following surgery, Trisha was treated with daily radiation for three weeks and weekly chemotherapy for four and a half months.
"When you go to the doctors in the States, there's a choice of three little boxes you tick for treatment of stage 4 cancer," she says. "One is cure, one is life-prolonging and one is palliative. There's that awful feeling when you’re sitting there thinking: 'Which one?' And mine is life-prolonging."
She currently has hormone therapy infusions every three weeks, along with regular scans and blood tests, and has had intense physiotherapy for the past four-and-a-half months. Having lost feeling in her right leg and left foot, she's had to learn how to walk again.
"I'm still a little bit ticked off with God. He hasn't given me a good explanation as to: 'Why me?' But some poor cow has to be a statistic,'" she jokes.
Trisha and Allen's intimate wedding
Her biggest concern following her operation was her wedding. She got engaged to Allen in January 2022 – the pair had been introduced by mutual friends in November 2017 – and was horrified at the thought of getting married "using a zimmer frame". They fixed a wedding date for 28 August, just over a month after her surgery, and instead of going on honeymoon, she began radiation therapy the day after. They were married by a rabbi at their local restaurant in front of 70 guests.
"Nobody else knew, but we knew, and it was a beautiful day," says Trisha, who wore a Victoria Beckham wedding dress and used a walking cane decorated with flowers.
Apart from their neighbours, who had called the ambulance, Trisha's daughters and her best friend, no one else knew what she was going through. "We said a few things to a few people and then thought: 'We're not doing that again.' Not because people are horrible, but they bring their own s**t to the rodeo," says Trisha with typical candour. "They'll cry, or say: 'Is there anything I can do?' and then you don't hear from them again."
"But we now know you can cure cancer if you eat lots of garlic and drink dandelion tea," she adds, her voice heavy with irony.
Her relationship with Allen
Sitting next to her, gently rubbing her back and at times looking tearful, Allen is clearly devoted to his wife. He has a deep understanding of the illness, having lost his first wife, and mother of his two grown-up children, to cancer.
"Every day he puts my tablets out and brings me tea during my show," she says, referring to her Talk TV broadcast, which, luckily, she is able to record in a studio at home. "During chemotherapy, when I'd be on the loo every night, he'd help me upstairs and downstairs. It's been difficult for you," she tells him.
"Sometimes I've caught her crying in the middle of the night. I've asked: 'What's the matter?' and she apologises because she's hurting," says Allen, his eyes filling with tears. "Yeah, I'm always saying sorry to him for ruining his life," Trisha replies, trying to lighten the mood. "You are my life," he says.
Continuing to work
Trisha is most proud of the fact that despite the pain and discomfort of her treatment – when she has lost hair and teeth, endured overwhelming fatigue, been unable to eat and suffered nosebleeds and stomach upsets – she has continued to work. She even covered the Queen's death and the King's coronation for CNN, managing to look camera-ready by wearing wigs and carefully applied make-up. But her stoicism, strength and resilience occasionally waver.
"I've had really awful times, and I'd be lying if I didn't say there were moments of cold sweat and fear. Moments of disbelief. I still walk every day, and I've been ice-skating twice, which is weird when you can't feel your feet! But I grieve for my old life, the fact that I can't run. Yet," she says.
"Every week I see a psychotherapist who only works with people in treatment, and that helps because she gives me hope and tells me stories, like the woman with stage 4 cancer she's been seeing for 20 years. I don't want to talk to Allen about it all the time because our relationship isn't just about cancer."
For now, Trisha is focusing on the positives, taking comfort from the fact that her doctors are pleased with her progress and that her regular scans show that her treatment is working. "There is no evidence that the cancer has spread," she says. The presenter hasn't asked for a timeframe from her oncologist. "But he is very candid with us, so we are always aware of the state of play," she adds.
Besides, she is not someone who has ever planned ahead or predicted what might happen. "I have never been someone who stresses about the future. It's not in my nature anyway and even less in my nature now," she says, firmly.
"I prefer to continue living life to the full, and in the moment."
To read the rest of this interview, pick up the latest issue of HELLO! on sale in the UK on Monday. You can subscribe to HELLO! to get the magazine delivered free to your door every week or purchase the digital edition online via our Apple or Google apps.
HELLO! has made a donation to the Home-Start Norfolk charity for this interview. Visit homestartnorfolk.org.
