Lifestyle

Olivia Newton John opens up about her cancer treatment

'You know, there are other people out there doing much, much worse than me.'
Loading the player...

Australian icon Olivia Newton John is fighting her third battle with cancer, but she’s staying positive despite it all.

“You know, there are other people out there doing much, much worse than me. And, I’m a very privileged person, and I’m very aware of that. I live in this beautiful place. I have a wonderful husband. I have all the animals that I adore. I have an incredible career. I have nothing, really, to complain about,” the actress and singer told Sunday Night‘s Alex Cullen.

In 2013, the Grease star was in a car accident and when a lump rose on her right shoulder, both she and the doctor thought it was due to the force of her seatbelt hitting her. However, the lump ended up being the return of her breast cancer.

Olivia trekked the Great Wall of China in 2008 to raise funds for cancer research.

Olivia was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992 and was famously open about her mastectomy and nine months of chemotherapy, but said she decided to keep quiet about her second diagnosis.

“The first time I talked about it and the second time I thought ‘I don’t really need to talk about it, I don’t need to share this with people it’s my life’ and I just decided to keep it to myself,” she confessed.

Olivia’s friend Pat Farrar opened up saying, “The first time was a big shock for all of us but she handled it with so much dignity and she was always so positive and it seemed to me she was more worried about how her friends were dealing with it than herself.”

Despite being treated with conventional medicines and natural therapies and the fact that the tumour in her shoulder shrunk, a third cancer tumour was then found in Olivia’s lower back. But the Xanadu singer remains hopeful.

READ MORE: Delta Goodrem breaks down on Sunday Night.

Olivia with her husband, John Easterling, at their ranch home.

Olivia also revealed that she has undergone radiation therapy, adopted a healthier diet by cutting sugar out of her diet and takes cannabis/marijuana oil to ease her pain which her husband, herbal medicine entrepreneur John Easterling, has been growing for her.

“I’m very lucky that I live in a state where it’s legal and that I have a husband that is a plant-medicine man,” she says.

“My dream is that in Australia, soon it will be available to all cancer patients and to people going through cancer or any kind of disease that causes pain.”

The singer recently cancelled her ‘In Conversation’ Australian tour which originally sparked rumours that her cancer had returned. We are wishing her all the best.

Related stories