Fearne Cotton wants you to check your boobs-Mel Evans-Entertainment – Metro

Fearne Cotton wants us to be looking after ourselves, which isn’t too much to ask

It’s quite a simple request from Fearne Cotton: Check your chests, people.

This weekend the presenter is curating Festifeel, an event alongside breast cancer charity, CoppaFeel!, and, having been a patron of the organisation for 10 years now, Fearne has learned just how breast cancer affects so many.

The 41-year-old has become close friends with Kris Hallenga, one of the co-founders of CoppaFeel! who was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer aged 23, after finding a lump at the age of 22, and through that has seen the importance of, well, copping a feel.

‘I had an amazing lady who came up to me and she had been at the CoppaFeel! stand [at Fearne’s Happy Place festival] and went home and checked her boobs, was diagnosed, had her treatment and is now fine,’ Fearne tells Metro.co.uk. ‘It’s unfortunately common, and that’s why we all have to do all we can to catch things early so that they are treatable, and there is a really good chance of a proper, full recovery.’

A message Fearne wants to share is that, contrary to what many of us may have believed in years gone by, breast cancer can happen to anyone.

‘Everyone can check their boobs and just make sure they understand what their normal is, what that feels like and not feel weird or nervous about doing it,’ Fearne tells us. ‘Just to make it part of having a shower in the morning, or when you’re putting your bra on, or just part of your daily routine. I don’t even think about doing it, I just do it.’

Fearne, here with Amanda Byran, left, and Kris Hallenga, centre, has been curating the FestiFeel event for 10 years (Picture: Joseph Okpako/WireImage)

The charity’s Boobettes have stories to tell and awareness to raise

When diagnosed, Kris was unaware breast cancer could affect people in their twenties, and, knowing very little about the disease, it struck her that there was very little information out there for young people, so she set about changing that with the charity, founded alongside her twin sister Marin.

‘I think everybody’s been touched by cancer – all my grandparents died of cancer, not breast cancer, but I think most people will know someone who’s been diagnosed or treated,’ Fearne says.

‘I’ve had one friend [who] luckily is ok now, but she was going through chemotherapy all last year. I’ve got another friend just diagnosed literally a couple of weeks ago and, obviously, I’ve met a lot of people through CoppaFeel! who I’ve befriended over the years who have had or are having treatment.’

The charity is on a mission to stamp out late detection and misdiagnosis by encouraging people to check their boobs or pecs regularly, educating them on the signs and symptoms of breast cancer, and empowering them to speak to their doctor if they notice any unusual changes.

After learning about Kris’s own journey with her diagnosis – after she was initially misdiagnosed, and was diagnosed only after seeing her doctor three times – we speak about the importance of listening to your intuition.

She’s learned to trust her own intuition (Picture: Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)

Sure the whole palaver around ‘a woman’s intuition’ may have some rolling their eyes and calling cliche, but Fearne agrees it can be one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal.

‘If you’ve been told you’ve got the all clear or whatever, but you still don’t feel right, I do think you have to go back and push and fight a bit to get a second opinion, or to get somebody else to say what else might be going on. Because you know your body,’ she says.

‘You might be told you’ve got the all clear and feel like yeah, great, I feel fine. But if you have some sort of inkling that something just isn’t quite normal, then I think you do need to go back. I’m sure it’s much more common than we’d like to think, being misdiagnosed and things not getting treated.’

Having been an avid campaigner for mental health, charting her journey with anxiety and how it forced her to take stock of her career, eventually hanging up her live radio mike, when it comes to any bouts of anxiety around her health Fearne explains she now nips worries in the bud before they fester into an unhealthy state of catastrophising.

‘If I’ve ever had worries about something not feeling right, I will just book a doctor’s [appointment] and just go,’ she explains. ‘I had something else checked out last year, which luckily turned out to be nothing, but I thought I’d rather check and find out rather than every day have that anxiety. I do just try and tackle things head-on where I can. But then, you know, health anxiety is a very real, all-consuming problem, which we need to find help for people who are going through that.’

It’s the eleventh this year, Festifeel is bringing in chart-toppers McFly as the headline act, as well as Radio DJ Adele Roberts taking a turn on the decks, and promising a good dose of laughter from comedians Rosie Jones, Kiri Pritchard McLean and Darren Harriot.

Festifeel takes place at London’s Omeara on Sunday 18 September. Find out more about CoppaFeel! here, and follow them on Instagram and Twitter @coppafeelpeople.

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