Magda Szubanski has revealed the “fantastic news” she has finished chemotherapy and is in remission from a rare, aggressive cancer she was diagnosed with nine months ago.
Wishing her fans a “Happy Mardi Gras” in a video on Instagram on Friday, Szubanski said: “I wanted to share the fantastic news, which is that I’ve completed chemo, and I am now in remission. So phew, big relief.
“It’s not a cure, but because I’ve got a good remission, that hopefully means that I will … keep the cancer at bay for a good long time.”
In May the 64-year-old actor and comedian said she had stage four mantle cell lymphoma, an uncommon and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and said she had shaved her head ahead of treatment.
In her message on Friday, Szubanski thanked her medical team and Australia’s first-class health system for the care and compassion she received.
“I also wanted to say a special, huge thank you to all of you for the love and support that you [gave me]. It was just like a tsunami coming at me, and honestly, I swear to God, it helped me not only emotionally, I think it really helped me physically too.
“I felt so loved up and cared for. So eternal gratitude. Thank you so much for that.”
Szubanski has repeatedly urged fans not to believe social media posts about her health or donate to fundraisers in her name which she says are all scams. She urged them to believe only what she posts on social media.
“Seems I’m not dead,” she said on Friday. “Better check with social media, because that knows more about me than I do.”
Szubanski appeared with a short grey hairstyle and quipped: “Turns out I’m not a natural blonde. It does look like it may have previously belonged to Napoleon.”
The popular artist is well known for playing the hapless netball fan Sharon Strzelecki in Kath & Kim and her sketch comedy work with her Kath & Kim co-stars Gina Riley and Jane Turner in Fast Forward and Big Girl’s Blouse.
In August she was inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame, with the likes of the film-maker George Miller, Kath & Kim’s Gina Riley, Richard E Grant and the politician Penny Wong all paying tribute. The US comedy actor Melissa McCarthy called her “one of the funniest humans, one of the smartest humans”.
The actor has previously spoken publicly about being diagnosed with osteoarthritis and autoimmune arthritis. In 2022, while filming the ABC show Magda’s Big National Health Check, she learned on camera that she was at risk of developing diabetes and high cholesterol.
