Millie Mackintosh on her breast cancer scare: ‘I vowed if I got the all-clear I’d help women with cancer’

When Millie Mackintosh found a lump in her breast, it  was the start of a “nerve-racking” journey that ended in the Sahara desert.

After discovering the lump, the former Made in Chelsea star had a biopsy that was inconclusive, followed by an MRI scan and a nervous wait for the results.

“Waiting for the results for a couple of weeks was really a nerve-racking, scary time,” says the mother-of-two.

“I vowed to myself that if I got the all-clear, I’d help women who get cancer, and to raise awareness for checking themselves and not just thinking breast cancer is something that happens to women in their 40s or 50s.

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“You need to be really familiar with your body and breasts and check yourself from a young age, so you know what your normal feels like, and aren’t scared to get that check, because it’s ignoring it and delaying that makes it so much more dangerous.”

Happily, Mackintosh, now 36, was given the all-clear after the MRI 18 months ago, and was told the lump was a hormonal issue that would fluctuate during her monthly cycle.

But although she didn’t have cancer herself, the traumatic experience made her determined to fulfil her vow to help others who did have cancer, so she signed up for a trek of more than 100km through the Sahara Desert to raise money and awareness for the youth-focused breast cancer charity CoppaFeel!

Mackintosh, who’s married to fellow Made in Chelsea star Hugo Taylor, has just returned to the UK after spending five days trekking through the scorching Moroccan Sahara with broadcaster Ashley James, drag queen Bimini, actress and singer Carrie Hope Fletcher and actress and author Giovanna Fletcher, alongside more than 120 CoppaFeel! supporters.

“I did some training, but nothing can really prepare you for trekking in those conditions, and camping,” Mackintosh, who was a trek team leader, admits.

“It was quite out of my comfort zone, and I’m so, so glad I did it. It was life-changing – honestly, I think everyone should experience doing a challenge like that.”

On some days the team trekked for eight hours, and Mackintosh says: “It was really challenging – you could see the camp in the distance, and it just felt like it wasn’t getting closer. Walking across this huge plateau, the tents in the distance were like a mirage.

“And then we were trekking in the dark, which I wasn’t a big fan of. But we all grouped together with our head torches on, and we just got each other through it. Being part of the team, and that connection with other people all coming together to help each other, was one of my favourite parts.”

Although Mackintosh and many of the other trekkers battled painful blisters on their feet during the walk, the hardest part of the experience for the mum was being apart from her two young daughters – Sienna, aged five, and four-year-old Aurelia – and not being able to contact them because there was no phone signal for much of the trek.

“I missed them so much,” she laments. “That was probably the hardest thing, with not having a phone signal. It was nice to take a break and not be on the internet all the time, to help my mind have a bit of a digital detox, but it was not being able to just send a message home or receive one, not knowing how the girls were, that I found really difficult.”

Fortunately, the separation wasn’t for long, and Hugo and the girls flew to Marrakech to meet Mackintosh at the end of the trek.

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“They came to Marrakech because it was Aurelia’s fourth birthday,” says the proud mum. “So they came out for a long weekend and celebrated her birthday – it was really emotional.”

Now she’s back in colder climes, Mackintosh’s next milestone is the publication of the paperback version of her book, Bad Drunk in January. The book, written with GP Dr Ellie Cannon, combines practical, scientific advice with Mackintosh’s personal experience of giving up alcohol three-and-a-half years ago after realising drinking too much was affecting her health and wellbeing.

Of writing the book, she says: “It was quite cathartic, really. I found it quite healing, because it was difficult to write some of the things that were quite dramatic for me, but I found the process of doing it actually made me deal with some of the things I maybe hadn’t dealt with.

“Emotions would come up, and it can be quite uncomfortable, but I did a lot of work around writing the book with a therapist, and I found it very freeing putting it all out there, and just letting go.”

She says being sober is a normal part of her life now – although she’s under no illusion that abstaining from alcohol will always be easy.

“At the beginning it felt quite difficult, but now it’s become a normal part of my life – I don’t feel tempted to have a drink,” she says. “It’s now been three-and-a-half years and it does get easier, but I know there’ll still be times like Christmas that will remind me of what it was like drinking.

“And to be honest, it just reminds me how grateful I am that I no longer have hangovers – just the messiness of it.

“I’m also aware the urge to have a drink could appear at any time. So I’m conscious of doing the work at therapy and knowing it could be something I have to be careful doesn’t happen in the future.”

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Therapy is helping Mackintosh with her emotional regulation, and she explains: “When I was drinking, I’d be looking for ways to not feel my feelings. So the work I’m doing now is around being present and actually being able to cope with all my emotions, good and bad, and react to them in a different way.”

Part of maintaining that emotional stability for Mackintosh is exercising, and carving out ‘me-time’ when possible. She stresses “I’ve never worked out in my life – I’ve avoided it,” but she discovered weight training and Pilates in her 20s and says: “I kind of got hooked. And I only started running in lockdown, but then I just loved what it did for my mind.”

To find a little time for herself, Mackintosh gets up before the crack of dawn – around 5am – and she explains: “I find juggling work and the kids you don’t really have free time, so I get up very early in the morning before them sometimes, trying to get ahead of my day. I find being up at 5am quite helpful, having an hour before the kids wake up to do things.

“But it’s still important to make the time when you can to get someone else to watch the kids and go and do your exercise or do the things you need to do to make yourself feel good, just so you have an uplift. Those moments feel really important as a mum.”