BAFTAs host David Tennant previously opened up about a terrifying cancer scare for his wife, which left her “planning [her] funeral” and still gives him “flashbacks”.
38-year-old Georgia, who met David playing his daughter on the set of Doctor Who, was diagnosed with cervical cancer following a smear test in 2018. This was just five years before the NHS pledged to eliminate the disease by 2040.
David Tennant wife cancer
Georgia documented the experience publicly on her personal blog, emphasising the importance of smear tests so that others too could catch any issues in time.
“Here I am on 22nd February 2018,” the actress introduced the important post. “Although ’tis indeed a fetching look, if you’d like to learn more about why you should never miss a smear test please read the story attached in bio. #cervicalscreeningawarenessweek.”
I’d started planning my funeral.
Georgia went on to tell the story of how she had gone to a routine smear test, which revealed abnormalities later identified as CIN 2, known as pre-cancer.
She heartbreakingly said: “Before I’d made it up upstairs to tell my husband, I’d started planning my funeral. Having kids takes you to that place pretty quickly I find.”
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David and Georgia, who have been married since 2011, share four children: Olive, 12, Wilfred, 10, Doris, eight, and Birdie, three. Georgia also has a 21-year-old son Ty from a previous relationship, who David adopted, and is now following in his parents’ footsteps as an actor.
‘A Sliding Doors moment’
Fortunately, Georgia was able to have a further biopsy which “got it all”, but understandably the reality that she’d had cancer was “quite a thing to get your head around”.
Survived cancer without ever realising I had it
“My betraying little cervix had begun an attempt to kill me off and by a stroke of baffling luck I had stopped it, beat it, cut it out before it had a chance to make it out of the starting gates. Survived cancer without ever realising I had it,” she penned with relief, before urging others to be on it with their smear tests:
“If the first part of the story didn’t hit home, I hope this bit does. From borderline changes to cancer to cancer free in mere months. It really could have been a different story. One I will be forever grateful I didn’t have to tell.”
Six years on, it seems the ordeal has likewise had a marked impact on husband David.
Both of us were just numb
“I still have these flashbacks of ‘What if you hadn’t…?’ I don’t think I acknowledged at the time how serious it could have been,” he recently told The Telegraph.
“Both of us were just numb. It was such a Sliding Doors moment. Even a few months later it could have been too late.”
The BAFTAs 2024 airs Sunday (February 18) from 7pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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