Comedian Katherine Ryan has revealed she’s battling skin cancer.
She made the revelation in her podcast, Telling Everybody Everything, explaining that she paid to have mole removed from her arm and learned this week it was cancerous. She now requires more surgery on Monday to ensure the entire mass has been removed.
The mother-of-three explained: ‘The only reason that they agreed to remove it was because I went to a fancy private place in South Kensington and I paid them a grand… I don’t know if on the NHS they ever would have removed this mole.’
While the Canadian comic, 41, did not trust the NHS would have removed the mole, she revealed she faced different problems while seeing private doctors.
She explained that she had paid £300 for a seven-minute consultation with a doctor, who wrongly informed her the mole wasn’t cancerous.
Yet she was inspired to keep pushing with her concerns after following Teddi Mellencamp’s journey. The Real Housewives star, 43, has been battling skin cancer since 2022 and this year revealed doctors had found three tumours in her brain.
Comedian Katherine Ryan, 41, has revealed she’s battling cancer for the second time and will undergo surgery next week to ensure the entirety of the cancerous mole has been removed (pictured displaying her scar on Friday)
She made the revelation in her podcast, explaining that she paid to have mole removed from her arm and learned this week it was cancerous (pictured in February)
Katherine recalled: ‘He gave me the news that I wanted! I think it’s really easy to take a diagnosis of you’re healthy and walk away, you go ”great I’m healthy” and you don’t think about it again because that is the easiest news.
‘But the mole kept changing – I know a lot about melanoma, I had a melanoma as a very young woman, stage two on my leg – and I’ve spoken about that before.
‘Even that didn’t look traditionally like melanoma to me, fair enough it had some discolouration and asymmetry and a bit of black and red. It was a flat mole, not that bad and not that big, but it was stage two melanoma so that was bad.
‘I had to have full general anesthetic and surgery to have a golf-ball size of my leg because – if you know about melanoma, you know it’s a deadly form of skin cancer and it spreads quickly.’
Discussing her current cancer battle, she went on: ‘I just felt like this mole wasn’t right. It’s on my arm, I showed pictures of it on social media, this is like the hole from having it removed.
‘I went in and I wanted the doctor to remove a bigger piece of it and stitch it up in a straight line.
‘But even when he looked at it, he was like “not melanoma, totally fine, I will do the shave and send it away for histology and if there’s any borders that we missed, then we will do the deeper cut”.’
Yet the test confirmed that she needed the deeper cut, and she continued: ‘It just feels crazy to me, like what could have happened if I hadn’t been my own advocate – and I will continue to be my own advocate.
‘If I hadn’t pushed, if I had taken that good answer the first time and walked away. Then I would have had melanoma just growing and spreading in my arm and I would say “oh no the doctor says it’s fine, it’s fine” and god knows how far that would have gone.’
It’s the second time Katherine has been diagnosed with the disease, having been diagnosed with Stage 2 cancer in 2004 (pictured on The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer in 2021)
She explained that she had paid £300 for a seven-minute consultation with a doctor, who wrongly informed her the mole wasn’t cancerous (Katherine’s mole is pictured before her surgery)
Katherine was inspired to keep pushing with her concerns after following Teddi Mellencamp ‘s journey. The Real Housewives star, 43, has been battling skin cancer since 2022 and this year revealed doctors had found three tumours in her brain
MailOnline reveals the simple ABCDE checklist that doctors use to spot melanomas
Katherine shared her shock at the diagnosis, revealing how she has been careful to protect her skin.
Explaining how she broke the news to husband Bobby Kootstra, she shared: ‘I was upset when I called [Bobby] because I feel very lucky but I also feel like what the f**k?
‘It’s not ideal to have melanoma twice in your life and I obviously have a genetic predisposition, I am someone with type one, Celtic skin, I have over 100 moles.
‘I don’t go in the sun, I wear SPF all the time, I cover my body, I cover my arms, I cover my face, but here’s my second go with melanoma that I know of! I’m thinking f**k what other moles do I need to get checked?’
She added in a TikTok video: ‘This time luckily I caught it early, I don’t think it has spread.’
It’s the second time Katherine has been diagnosed with the disease, having been diagnosed with Stage 2 cancer in 2004.
She said previously: ‘The cancer wasn’t that serious. It wasn’t into my lymph nodes, I didn’t have to have chemotherapy.
‘It did recur, but it was easily dealt with. I feel like I was really lucky just to get that lesson, that little smack on the a**e of “Hey, wait a minute. Listen to your body, here.”’
She previously joked that moving to the UK had been the ‘best thing’ for her because of the lack of warm weather, she told The Guardian: ‘I just joked that it was free lipo. If you’re prone to skin cancer, then living in the UK is the best thing you can do.’
Katherine was born and raised in Canada but moved to London in her early twenties to pursue her comedy career (pictured with husband Bobby Kootstra in 2024)
The comedienne and her childhood sweetheart Bobby have two children together Fenna, two, and Fred, three. She also has a 15-year-old daughter Violet from a previous relationship
Katherine was born and raised in Canada but moved to London in her early twenties to pursue her comedy career.
The comedienne and her childhood sweetheart Bobby have two children together Fenna, two, and Fred, three.
She also has a 15-year-old daughter Violet from her previous relationship with boyfriend Alex Edelman.
Katherine has also been battling Lupus and previously discussed her struggle with the disease – having first experienced symptoms back in 2007.
She had just moved to London when she first began to suffer with sore joints, fatigue and rashes.
In an interview with The Mirror she explained: ‘I had really low white blood cells, but no one seemed particularly alarmed about that. There was a lot of frustration with doctors who didn’t know what was wrong and didn’t investigate. I felt quite fobbed off.’
Following various appointments with an array of specialists, she added that she was told she could have ‘ringworm’ whilst another took a guess with ‘leprosy.’
Desperately Katherine visited A&E, where a nurse there first suggested that she might have Lupus.
After almost a year of trying to get a professional diagnosis she was finally told by a dermatologist that she had systemic lupus erythematosus.
Whilst there is no cure for the long-term condition, it can be treated and controlled with medication to prevent it from getting worse and lessen flare-ups.
As well as being a stand-up comedian appearing on shows such as QI and Have I Got News For You, Katherine is also well-known for television programmes such as Duchess and Meet the Richardsons.
Fans know her as much for her glamourous looks and outfits as they do for her outspoken nature on everything British.
