Coleen Nolan becomes latest family member to announce cancer diagnosis

Loose Women star Coleen Nolan is the latest member of her family to reveal a cancer diagnosis.

The 58-year-old singer, part of Anglo-Irish family pop group The Nolans, has seen several of her sisters diagnosed with cancer over the years.

Bernie died of breast cancer in 2013 at the age of 52 and Linda announced this year that her cancer had spread to her brain.

Speaking on Loose Women on Monday, Coleen said her sister Maureen would often point at a “tiny bit of skin” on her shoulder that was a “bit red”, before she decided to see a doctor.

The TV personality, who has appeared on Dancing On Ice and Celebrity Big Brother, said she was seeing a dermatologist about “another problem” when the medic said the patch was common skin cancer basal cell carcinoma.

Coleen said: “I went back in and he was very good and he said, ‘Look, it’s nothing to worry about. It is actually a cancer that doesn’t necessarily spread, but you do need to treat it and we’ll try it with cream and then the chemo cream and then if that doesn’t work, we’ll cut it out and give you a skin graft’.

“My first instinct, typical me, was to laugh hysterically because I just thought that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard anybody say.

“I’m sick of cancer and also, my first instinct was, I’m not telling anybody in my family because this that I’ve got at the moment seems nothing compared to what my sisters have been though.

“And… what Linda is going through, where it has gone to her brain and she’s having chemo.

“It just seemed so pathetic for some reason to go back and go, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve got a carcinoma’.”

She added she has to try the cream again and is hoping to raise awareness for other people to get checked.

After her announcement, Linda wrote on Twitter how “very proud” she was of her younger sister Coleen.

The 64-year-old wrote: “She acted on her instincts, found something amiss and got it checked.

“If you spot something out of the ordinary for you, PLEASE get it checked. Don’t be frightened.”

Linda revealed in 2020 a third recurrence of the disease in her liver after treatment in 2006 for breast cancer.

Another sibling Anne, who took part in The Nolans Go Cruising TV series alongside her sisters, was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time three years ago but is now cancer-free.