Neighbours Harold Bishop actor Ian Smith says his cancer is 'so rare, drastic, severe and awful that doctors don't know what will happen'

The 86-year-old actor, who played Harold Bishop in the beloved Australian soap on/off between 1985 and 2025, was speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning, (Friday April 18).

Ian was being interviewed after his character’s final scenes aired on Monday, (April 14). It came around four months after the TV star shared with fans that he was diagnosed with a rare terminal lung cancer known as pulmonary pleomorphic carcinoma, and began treatment immediately.

After his diagnosis in December, the soap star was told that he would die in March - but after being put on a revolutionary treatment plan he has defied the odds. He since revealed that he’s now been given an update by medics and has been told he will live to see Christmas 2026.

Although the soap stalwart is in the best place that he can be right now, he shared with hosts Charlotte Hawkins and Adil Ray that doctors aren't sure what would happen if he decided to come off the immunotherapy.

He said: “It's a cruel, ugly, brutal place, and I don't know how, but it looks like I'm having the best luck in the world with defeating this cancer.

“Although the oncologist can't tell me that, they said because, this cancer is so rare, so drastic, so severe, so awful, they don't know, they don't know what it's going to do.”

He went on to share that he has helped to decide what his treatment plan looks like as doctors know “so little” about the cancer there isn’t an obvious course.

“After my last treatment I asked ‘how long do I have to keep going with these treatments?’ And he said: ‘it's up to you’. I said: ‘I thought I was in your hands’. He said: ‘no. We know so little about this cancer that we don't know that if you stop taking the treatments, it may roar back into life’.”

“So I said: ‘Look for an hours treatment every three weeks I think I can put up with that’. And it looks like these very clever people are going to keep me alive.”

Ian's appearance on Good Morning Britain comes after recently said he feels “reborn” amid his terminal cancer battle. “I was supposed to die in March. I didn't. So I'm here to talk about me dying last month,” Smith said to The Project.

“I know I've got cancer because doctors keep telling me I have. That's the only way I know. I've got no pain – none of that.”

Ian also reflected on his long career with Neighbours and his exit earlier this week. “Interesting is one word for it, privileged I think is better,” he said. “I ended up making the best possible friends a man could ever have. This has been more than a street to me.”

The episode saw Harold make the difficult decision to leave Erinsborough for good and move to Port Douglas in Queensland to be with his granddaughter. Ian also spoke about filming his last episodes, saying it was deeply emotional, and he also described his co-stars as “nothing short of family”. “I love them all dearly,” he added.