BBC Radio 4 DJ Steve Hewlett revealed on air that he may have only weeks left to live after his cancer treatment failed.

The 58-year-old father-of-three and broadcast veteran has been very public about his struggle with the disease, even publishing a diary of his cancer treatment on The Guardian. After hearing that chemotherapy and radiotherapy had failed due to problems with his liver, he promptly married his partner Rachel.

Speaking on the Eddie Mair Show, Hewlett revealed that that he was told he had just ‘weeks, possibly months’ left to live – advised to ‘live every day as it comes’.


“I’d kind of accepted at some level or other that the outlook was not good for me in the medium to long term,” he said. “Of course you have hope and you do your best and I certainly wasn’t going to give up.

“It took a little while for it to dawn on me what was really being said. This could be it. This could be curtains.”

Speaking of his quick marriage, he continued: “The whole thing was organised in an hour. They got a Chelsea registrar, they got a Chelsea vicar hauled out of a dinner she was in with somebody.

“The nurses managed to produce bunches of flowers, a wedding cake, a couple of bottles of Prosecco appeared from goodness knows where, and then this ceremony begins.”

Hewlett writes for The Guardian and has presented The Media Show on BBC Radio 4 since 2008.