Meg Mathews has secretly been battling breast cancer.
The 60-year-old columnist had a routine mammogram in October 2024, which revealed three “pea-sized lumps” under her left breast, as well as more in her lymph nodes under her arm, and Meg was diagnosed with a HER2-negative form of the disease, which “isn’t aggressive”, that November.
Speaking to The Sun, the businesswoman, who was married to Oasis’ Noel Gallagher from 1997 to 2001, looked and felt “great”, but she “would never have known that I had any illness whatsoever” because the lumps were hard to find as they were located at the back where the milk glands are.
Meg mentioned, “I didn’t feel scared when I got the diagnosis. I just thought, ‘I can’t break down and think poor me. I’m strong, I’m going to get through it,’” adding, “I knew I had to stay positive because it could have gone the other way and I could have relapsed.”
She quit drinking in 2017 after her 51st birthday, following years of struggling with alcohol and substance abuse, which began in her early teens and intensified during the height of the Britpop era in the 1990s.
Laughing, Meg said, “I never thought it was because of my ‘colourful’ lifestyle in the ’90s – I’ve never heard of cocaine or ecstasy causing cancer!”
“I drank a lot, so I didn’t know if it comes back to that. Doctors don’t really know what causes it, so I’m just one of those statistics,” she admitted.
Meg worried about how her diagnosis would affect her and Noel’s 26-year-old daughter, Anais, who is dating 27-year-old actor Callum Scott Howells.
She stated, “I said to Anais, ‘Look, really don’t worry. I’ve got this. Your mum’s always got this. You’ve seen what I’ve been through. I can get through anything.’ And she said, ‘Mum, I know you can do this. If anyone can, it’s you.’ Anais is very black and white – she’s got more of her dad in her. She never seemed worried to me, but I’m sure she was.”
“I’ve always been like that – because of everything that she’s grown up with, I’ve protected her so much. I’ve always been that pillar of strength for her. So, it was not the time to even start breaking down,” Meg recalled.
“I said, ‘Make sure you have family around you, tell your boyfriend, tell your dad, your best friends – people close to you that you may need to talk to. I gave her permission to tell them. I didn’t want her to go to an event and tell everyone, but I wanted her to have a support group.”
Just days after being diagnosed with HER2-negative breast cancer, doctors started discussing chemotherapy or radiotherapy with Meg, but she felt it was not a route she wanted to take.
However, she ultimately opted for a double mastectomy in March 2025 and had her lymph nodes removed, but did not have reconstruction at the same time and plans to have it done in the future.
Meg also did not struggle with losing her breasts and said having a double mastectomy was an “easy” decision to make, explaining, “I have had so many boob jobs, they didn’t feel like mine anymore anyway. I’ve had five or six since the age of 30. Noel gave me a boob job for my 30th birthday. No one ever knew that. He will be dying, I’ve said that, but it was a great gift, and he was happy about it, too!”
“But then I had them done a couple of times as they were too small, or one was in my armpit. I had to keep changing them,” she added.
“There was so much scar tissue by then, and they were quite numb. I just wasn’t that connected to them anymore, so it was an easy decision for me.”
Just 11 days after the surgery, a pathologist told Meg she was cancer-free and did not have to have radiotherapy or chemotherapy.
The health ordeal has given Meg a new perspective on life. “I don’t worry about the little things anymore. It’s completely changed my attitude. I’d fret over the stupidest things. I’m 60, and I’m going to enjoy my life.”
“I feel I have had a second chance because I did lead a very colourful life and I wasn’t the healthiest. You’ve got one life, one body, and I’m going to do the best I can do for it,” she concluded of her long battle with breast cancer.
