The Hairy Bikers star Dave Myers has said that he is undergoing chemotherapy after being diagnosed with cancer.
The TV chef said that he’d decided to discuss his diagnosis publicly because he didn’t want to “hide under a rock”. He also disclosed that he would be losing his hair in the coming months.
Speaking on his podcast, The Hairy Bikers: Agony Uncles… A Right Pair of Aunts, on Friday (6 May), Myers told his on-screen cooking partner Si King that he would be taking a step back from filming and attending food festivals with the Hairy Bikers this summer.
“Anyway Kingy, I’ve got to come clean now,” Myers said. “I haven’t been too well recently and basically, I’ve got to have some chemo, you know all this anyway, so this year is going to be a bit quiet for me.
“I’m not going to be filming, some of the festivals I’m not going to be able to go to, some I may be OK but this year’s a bit of a write off for us.”
The 64-year-old continued: “I would love it if people respected my privacy and just let me get on with it and give Si and our team all the support they need, that would be great.
“But look, the prognosis is OK, I’m going to be fine. I’ve just got to tuck in, look after myself, eat sensibly and get over this mess, flog books, and be a happy person. So within that, that’s where I am,” he said.
“I may be a baldy biker for a while so it’s just a warning, I don’t want to make a fuss about it, I look alright bald actually,” Myers added, with King joking that his friend had looked like “an upside-down Hells Angel” when they first met.
“Under different circumstances I would embrace it more I feel, but under these circumstances it’s simply something I have to live with, get on with it and crack on,” Myers said.
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The presenting duo met in 1995, releasing their first cookery TV show The Hairy Bikers’ Cookbook together in 2004.
Myers competed on the 11th series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2013 with Karen Hauer, where they made it through to week seven.