Big Brother reality TV star, age 40, gives health update a year after being diagnosed with brain tumour
A Big Brother star has given a health update after being diagnosed with a rare brain tumour last year.
Charlie Doherty, aged 40, was a stripper when she appeared on the reality show back 2016 alongside housemates including notorious influencer Andrew Tate and the eventual winner Jason Burrill.
In 2024 the reality star, who is now a mum, announced on Instagram that she had been diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma, a rare benign tumour in the brain. At the time she said she was diagnosed after suffering difficult symptoms for a year, and called the diagnosis “scary and shocking”.
She said she first went to the doctor with a blocked ear and was told it could have come from a cold or build-up of wax. But, after her symptoms worsened she insisted on having an MRI scan, which she called a “saving grace” because this is how she then received her diagnosis.
Although the TV star said she was in “initial shock”, she is“just trying to keep a positive mind on everything”. She has now shared an update on her condition - and she has revealed her tumour could have grown and she still may need surgery.
“So, it’s stable and I had a six-month MRI, when they just check on it, they basically said that all was well,” she told the Daily Star. “But it had grown and it is now 18 millimetres. I did get told originally it was like 13 millimetres, but they said not to go by that measurement, because it was done in a hospital where it’s not very HD.
She explained: “The one at King’s College Hospital was like the creme de la creme, the Rolls-Royce of MRI machines. And they said ‘we’re not even going to judge it on that first initial one, because it was so grainy, so we don’t really want to go by that’.”
Doherty said she was initially told she might eventually need brain surgery or camera surgery too, where doctors “target radiotherapy for brain swelling”. But they also warned her it could make her feel ill for up to two years if she had either of those procedures.
She went on, however, to say that medics aren’t “too worried” about her tumour currently, and that it won’t be easy to “just get it out”. “I’m only going to stress when I actually need to and they say that we’re in a bit of trouble,’ she added.
Sharing her diagnosis in a post on April 4 2024, she wrote: “"So I received some rubbish news this week… I have been having some ongoing issues which has gone on a while and I pushed for an MRI which has resulted in them finding a brain tumour . . . To me this is a very alien subject scary and quite frankly shocking.”