Source : Perth Now news
Iconic Aussie actress Magda Szubanski has declared she has “nothing left to hide” – opening up on her cancer prognosis, family health history and a childhood trauma secret she has carried for decades in a wide-ranging interview.
Szubanski, 65, has been battling Mantle Cell Lymphoma, a rare and aggressive blood cancer, since May last year.
In February, she announced she was in remission.
Appearing on 60 Minutes – marking her first public interview since revealing her diagnosis – Szubanski said it was an “incurable relapse in cancer”.
“So, it’s almost sure that it will come back. It’s a question of ‘when’ and then ‘how bad’,” she told the program and host Tracy Grimshaw.
“The median survival rate is eight-and-a-half years. So, I could go less, or I could go more.”
Szubanski joked she would “pitch for more” as she opened up on her health battle.
“I knew something was wrong. I just felt so unwell,” she said.
She described how she had felt like her bones were “splitting” – later learning her bone marrow was inflamed at the time.
“It would wake me up in the middle of the night, literally wake up with my sorts of dream voice saying ‘you’re dying, you’re dying’.
“So, it was like, dude, there’s something wrong here. You know, there’s something really wrong.”
In an ironic twist, after visiting a haematologist for her bone marrow biopsy, Szubanski said she had to film an ad for Medibank.
“It was … a bizarre, bizarre experience,” she laughed.
Szubanski said the chemotherapy treatment “annihilates” your immune system, comparing it to a “multi-car pile up”.
“I’m not being a Pollyanna about this because I think that’s not fair to people to do that,” she said.
“It was freaking hard, but when I say it was doable, it was.
“My results put me in good stead, but it can change.
“I know all of us live, with a Damocles sword hanging over our heads.
“But for those of us who, you know, it hangs by only a couple of strands, it’s a very different feeling.
“It is just a different state of consciousness. It’s a different awareness of death. It’s not abstract.”
During the program, Szubanski opened up on her family’s history of health problems.
When she was six, her father was diagnosed with cancer.
She also revealed her mother had pancreatic cancer and her sister has lymphoma.
Szubanski joked her brother was the “f**king odd one out” after he head a heart attack and a quintuple bypass.
Host Tracy Grimshaw also touched on Szubanski’s public work as an activist for gay rights.
For the first time, Szubanski shared that she had been sexually abused as a young child by older children.
“I hadn’t understood. I just thought it was kids playing. And then they locked me in a wardrobe in the backyard in the midday sun,” she told Ms Grimshaw.
“It was mainly the thing of sort of being manipulated, and being … and that horrible feeling that you are able to be manipulated.
“I think probably the thing that makes me feel the worst that I feel most ashamed about is that I then did the same thing.
Szubanski said she felt some kind of “relief” of a “burden” talking about it.
“Because to say it out loud, it just, you can just feel this change of, like, ‘Wow, it’s lost its power over me. That shame has lost its power over me’,” she said.
“I can’t believe I’m saying all this stuff on national television, but I’m also 65, and I’ve got cancer, and who f**king cares?
“There’s a part of me that thinks, ‘If there’s anything that I know that’s gonna help someone else, I don’t know how long I’ve got, I’m gonna bloody share it’.”
Iconic Aussie actor Magda Szubanski has delivered a touching message to one of her young fans.
Szubanski has made few public appearances since her diagnosis – save for a wild appearance at the 2026 Logie Awards where she stepped back into the spotlight alongside Robert Irwin.
During the Awards, Szubanski donned a khaki fit-out with a bandage, arm sling and various other mock injuries, as Irwin introduced her as Australia Zoo’s newest team member.
“Don’t all the trainees fall in the tiger enclosure?” Szubanski asked.
The pair paid homage to her Kath and Kim days before she joked if Irwin could announce the award for the coveted the Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television
When Irwin retorted that he couldn’t as he might be the winner, Szubanski responded with her characteristic wit.
“Like, do you really think that’s gonna happen, Robert?” Szubanski asked.
Irwin then put on his best Sharon Strzelecki voice.
“Sharon, you can’t leave me. You can’t leave me, Sharon. This is TV’s night of nights, Sharon. Look at me. No, look at me. Look at me. I’ve got one word to say to you Sharon — pleaaaase,” he said.
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