James Whale gives update on ‘very difficult’ situation amid terminal cancer diagnosis

Radio presenter James Whale has said that his situation is “very, very difficult”, after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

The 74-year-old broadcaster has been living with stage four kidney cancer for the past five years, telling listeners in May that he had stopped treatment and was “at the end of [his] cancer journey”.

During Friday’s (6 June) episode of his series James Whale Unleashed, broadcast on talkRADIO and TalkTV, Whale addressed a guest whose husband had died of cancer.

“Until very recently, everything was quite normal for me, everything was fine, and then you do get to a stage like I am now, and things get to be very, very difficult,” said Whale.

“To anybody else who is in the final stages of cancer, you have my sympathy. I know exactly what you're going through. I do know, I look basically okay, I get told I look OK – it's all make-up.”

Whale has been a fixture of British radio and TV for five decades and was awarded an MBE for his services to broadcasting and to charity in the 2024 New Year Honours List.

He was first diagnosed with cancer in 2000, with treatment requiring him to remove one of his kidneys. Whale’s first wife, Melinda Maxted, died of lung cancer in 2018.

In 2020, Whale revealed that his own cancer had returned in his kidney, spine, brain and lungs.

He spoke about his condition last month on air, suggesting that he intended to continue work as a radio and TV host for “another few months”.

“I'm at the end of my cancer journey,” he said, alongside Talk co-host Ash Gould. “There is no treatment I can have anymore. I'm hoping to go on for another few months, but as soon as I can't do the show anymore, I won't.”

“I can't tell you how grateful I am to Talk to actually let me on the air and sit next to Ash, which is a real pain in the butt, but I've been doing it for 25 years!”