Dan was in Poland at the time

Dan Walker – who appeared on Strictly back in 2021 – was once incorrectly told that he had a cancerous tumour in his kidneys.

The 48-year-old Channel 5 News presenter made the shocking confession during a podcast appearance in 2023.


Dan had a cancer scare once (Credit: CoverImages.com)

5 News host Dan Walker on cancer scare

November 2023 saw Dan appear on Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time podcast.

During his appearance on the pod, the former Strictly star opened up about how he found “a slightly strange lump in my stomach” during a work assignment in Poland.

“I felt my breathing was changing a little bit and I went to the medical centre in the broadcast centre there, and within two and a half minutes I was in the back of an ambulance on my way to a Polish A&E,” he explained.

Editor of Match of the Day, Richard Hughes, was with Dan at the time, and “dropped everything” to be by his colleague’s side in hospital.

It was here that Dan – on Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? this weekend (August 16) – received a massive scare.


The TV star received the all-clear (Credit: ITV)

5 News host Dan Walker talks incorrect cancer diagnosis

Dan then continued, saying: “You know times in life when you think sometimes you just need someone to hold your hand?”

“It did get a bit scary that night – about two o’clock in the morning a Polish consultant came in and told me that I had cancer because they’d seen some shadows on my kidney, and he used the word tumour,” he said.

Dan then asked the consultant: “I don’t mean this to sound rude in any way, but is the head consultant around, and can they have a look at the scan? Because if I tell my family I’ve got cancer, I need to know 100 per cent.”

Six hours later, he got the all-clear. “At eight o’clock in the morning, she came in and she said it’s not a tumour,” he said.

Dan on his recovery

Although Dan thankfully didn’t have cancer, his recovery from his kidney problem was a gruelling one.

He recalled having to have eight litres of saline pumped into his body to help restart his kidney function. This caused extensive bloating.

“The next day I woke up and I went to the bathroom mirror, part of me wishes I had taken a photograph but I didn’t because my face, my head was about twice the size that it is at the moment,” he said.

“Every part of my body was swollen and I couldn’t even get my boxer shorts on,” he then added.