Davina McCall on the heartbreaking way her life has changed forever after brain surgery

Davina McCall has told how she changed her Will to include heartfelt letters to her children ahead of her brain operation - because she feared she could die. However, instead of being scared when she was in the operating theatre having her cyst removed, her overriding feeling was how proud she was of her family and that everything would be OK for them whatever happened next. "I'm grateful. Life will never be the same again, but in rather a good way," the TV host says in a teary interview, her first since the operation in November.

She adds: "There's that saying, 'A life lived in fear is a life half-lived'. If you don't really want to do something, don't do it. But if there's something that you want to do, yeah, do it. Write your bucket list now. "When I did one with my sister, Caroline, we wrote a really sweet, lovely bucket list. She died before she could do any of it. Why are we doing bucket lists when we're dying? Write the bucket list now, in your thirties, and go, 'What is my bucket list? Like, what do I want to do before I die?' And let's start doing it now.".

Davina, star of shows including Long Lost Family and The Masked Singer, found the colloid cyst by chance when she was given a free health scan after giving a talk on the menopause. She then had to decide when to have it removed as there were risks with the operation but if she didn't remove the tumour "very rarely it can also cause sudden death". Davina then describes how she felt the tumour "had taken hold of me" and that initially made her angry because it made her feel "every day like I'm in danger". But she learned to live with it, calling the tumour Jeffrey as a coping mechanism. She even threw parties for Jeffrey to downplay the significance of what the tumour meant and to try to stay upbeat.

Davina then had to decide when to have the operation and to fully understand the risks involved. She spoke to partner Michael Douglas about her own mortality "quite quickly" and began to make plans. Davina explains: "I said, 'Look, I've got to plan for it if it doesn't go according to plan'. "When I'd spoken to the doctors, they talked about things like stroke, epilepsy, these being risks. Nicking an artery or a blood vessel in the brain and having a bleed... so there were a lot of things that could be a risk. And obviously, because of my age, you know, I'm fifty-seven.

"That was another thing that mattered to me. I was thinking, you know, 'Would you rather have brain surgery now, or if it grew in eight years' time, would you want to have it in your mid-to-late sixties? Would it not be better to get it done now while you're fit and healthy in every other way?" So yes, we had that talk quite soon. "And I did go and address my will and make sure that was airtight. I talked to Michael about my wishes. I wrote letters of wishes to all the children and put those in my will.

"And I made sure that when I went to sleep before the operation, I could trust in Kevin(O'Neill, her neurosurgeon) and let go of the outcome. "And I really got there. Like, I really went to sleep and thought, 'Everything will be okay, whatever happens.' And it felt like I'd climbed a mountain, but it was a good mountain to climb, you know? Like, I really meant it.". On her beloved children - Holly, 23, Tilly, 21, and 18-year-old Chester - and the thought of death, she adds: "I mean, the thing you really want to do is have your mum around when you have babies, get married. Christmases with grandchildren...I mean, I can't wait for grandkids.

"Those are the kinds of things that I would feel sad about. But what I was trying to not do is think about things that I would miss if I didn't make it. I was trying to think about, 'How would they cope if I didn't make it? Who would they have around them? Who would support them? Where would they live?' I was trying really not to kind of think too much about what I would miss because it just made me feel too sad.

"Weirdly, I'd thought about it so much that actually my final thought about it was that they're surrounded by love and family and Michael, but also they're really great kids. Like, I just thought, "You guys... it will be devastating, but you will all be okay." And I just had that feeling. They're good kids. They're smart. That was such a nice feeling. I don't mean smart as in clever. I mean in life. Robust. Yes, they make me very proud. And you know, it's interesting because I always wanted my mum to say that about me. That's why I became famous. That was the whole reason. But it's so nice to be able to say that about my kid and to tell them all the time. It's amazing. But through this... it has made me immensely proud of all of them.".

Speaking to Steven Bartlett as she relaunched her podcast Begin Again with him, Davina also revealed the emotional rollercoaster she faced and the profound impact the experience has had on her close relationships. The thoughtful TV star even set up a special Whatsapp group with family and friends so she could give updates, but also so they could be notified if she died before the news was made public to the media.