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The Saturdays singer Frankie Bridge has admitted that she was overwhelmed by fear after doctors told her they’d found a tumour in her neck.
The pop star, 35, appeared as a panellist on the ITV daytime programme Loose Women, where she spoke about her experience during a discussion about cancer, following the news of King Charles’s diagnosis.
The British monarch was diagnosed with an “undisclosed cancer” while undergoing unrelated treatment for a benign enlarged prostate.
Bridge, who rose to fame as a member of girl group The Saturdays in 2007, told her fellow Loose Women panellists how she had sought an MRI after suffering with headaches, when doctors found something on her neck “just by chance”.
After another MRI, it turned out to be a benign tumour which did not require treatment. However, Bridge said she was at home on her own with the children while her husband, footballer Wayne Bridge, was away, when she received the news.
She and her husband share two sons, Parker and Carter.
“And he (the doctor) was like: ‘Oh, we’ve found a tumour. I don’t want to say what it is yet because I don’t know, I’m gonna have to present it to a board of other specialists,’” the singer recalled.
“And instantly I just thought: ‘That’s it. This is my time. I’m gonna be sick’, or, I did go straight away to: ‘God, I’m gonna die.’ And I had to kind of hold it together for the boys.
“And luckily for me, the outcome was it’s just really rare. It’s really unfortunate,” she continued. “They’ve only come across it because they were scanning me for my headaches.”
Frankie Bridge says doctors found a benign tumour in her neck
(Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
Bridge said the tumour was something that would need to be monitored, and explained that she had “breezed through the week” after hearing the news: “I didn’t really take anything in.”
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She added that she couldn’t begin to imagine how she would have reacted had it been “a horrible outcome”.
In the same episode, Bridge also opened up about what it was like when her mother was treated for cancer, as her fellow panellists also shared their experiences of learning a loved one had been diagnosed with the disease.
“She is well now and she is cancer-free, but obviously it comes with a price and it affects your body afterwards,” she said.
“So I think that’s been a big thing and horrible to see her go through.”
Charles and Camilla wave as they leave Clarence House in London
(AFP via Getty Images)
King Charles is said to be “coping magnificently” after his diagnosis, and was seen for the first time since the news as he was driven out of Clarence House to Buckingham Palace on Tuesday afternoon (6 February).
He and Queen Camilla later arrived at Sandringham by helicopter, after a brief meeting with Prince Harry, who flew to the UK earlier on Tuesday.
Palace sources told The Times that the King was tired from an unspecified procedure the previous day but otherwise showing no outward signs of having “any condition at all”.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
