Magda Szubanski reveals stage 4 cancer diagnosis, begins treatment for rare lymphoma
Gina Riley as Kim (left) and Magda Szubanski as Sharon in the Australian comedy Kath & Kim.
Photo:
ABC News
Comedian Magda Szubanski, best known for her acting roles in
Babe
and
Kath & Kim
, has revealed she has stage 4 blood cancer.
In a video posted on social media, the 64-year-old said she had been diagnosed with a "very rare, very aggressive, very serious lymphoma".
"It's pretty confronting ... but new treatments keep coming down the pipeline constantly," Szubanski said.
Szubanski said she had begun Nordic protocol treatment, a chemotherapy regimen used to treat Mantle Cell Lymphoma.
With a career spanning more than 20 years, Szubanski achieved international acclaim for her role as Esme Hoggett in the film
Babe
.
She also played the netball-loving character of Sharon Strzelecki in popular Australian sitcom
Kath & Kim
.
Magda Szubanski has been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive type of blood cancer.
Photo:
ABC
-
ABC
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Otago Daily Times
6 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Health needs to be put to ministers
Wānaka's most vocal health advocacy group will be demanding more publicly funded services for the region in upcoming meetings with health ministers. Health Action Wānaka have secured a private meeting with the Minister of Health Simeon Brown on July 1 in Auckland, in addition to a meeting with Associate Health Minister Matt Doocey on the same day, during his visit to Wānaka for the Rural Health Roadshow. The group published a health report two months ago exposing urgent unmet health needs in the region and criticising the lack of strategic health planning to meet the Upper Clutha's rapid population growth. Before publishing the report, Health Action Wānaka wrote to Mr Brown sharing their findings and requesting a meeting which they were offered a day after the report went public. As part of the report, they worked with healthcare providers and interviewed locals who have faced inequity when trying to access services. The report exposed gaps across a range of services including mental health, maternity care and aged care, while also highlighting key barriers, such as travel costs, for locals trying to access healthcare in the region. Four members of the group's steering committee are set to travel to Auckland next month for a meeting with Mr Brown, while the remaining member and two representatives from youth mental health NGO, ADL will meet Mr Doocey. Health Action Wānaka spokesperson Monique Mayze said in a statement that they wanted to leave both meetings feeling confident the ministers were considering their recommendations. Part of the group's proposal are three "quick wins" which will include the introduction of telehealth psychiatric consultations, publicly funded blood collection within the next two years and funded radiology services. Ms Mayze said that with the strong evidence they have collected, the ministers will be held directly accountable to the local community for what they choose to do with the information. "Sometimes you have to be the squeaky wheel to get stuff done," she said. "And that's what we will continue to be until our community gets access to the publicly funded health services it needs". The group announced both meetings on their social media and called for community involvement as they plan the specific questions they want to ask during the meetings. They are also urging the community to attend the public questions and answers event with Mr Doocey as a way of showing solidarity in the fight for a more equitable healthcare system. "We need hundreds of locals to turn up," Ms Mayze said. " ... to send a message to Minister Doocey and Minister Brown that something has to be done about the health services inequity in our community." The group's meeting with Mr Doocey will take place before the public event and will be attended by one member of Health Action Wānaka and two representatives from ADL. Ms Mayze said the representatives from ADL will be able to give Mr Doocey insights into the reality of mental health services in the region. This will also help make a strong case for the group's proposal to introduce psychiatric telehealth services for NGOs like ADL. The public event will be held on July 1 at the Lake Wanaka Centre, from 12pm to 1.30pm, as part of the Rural Health Roadshow.

RNZ News
11 hours ago
- RNZ News
How a health problem you don't know about could disrupt insurance
Changes in medication for ongoing conditions could also be an issue. Photo: 123RF You don't need to be diagnosed with a health condition to have it stop a travel insurance claim from being paid, the Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman says. Karen Stevens' scheme is one of several external dispute resolution services, which deal with complaints that cannot be resolved directly between consumers and financial services providers. She said people were often caught out when they went to claim on travel insurance policies, particularly when it came to pre-existing health conditions. Insurers usually required people to disclose all health conditions when they take out travel insurance, and then decide whether to charge an extra premium to cover them or exclude them from the policy. Stevens said travel insurers had different ways of collecting information and sometimes people did not realise they had a health condition to declare. "People think they're okay and they're not." Many policies would count previous symptoms, not just diagnoses, as an existing health condition. "They don't have to know they have a particular thing called something, all they need to know is they had a sore back or a cough they didn't have before," she said. Changes in medication for ongoing conditions, such as asthma or blood pressure, could also be an issue. People may have claims turned down, because of their relatives' health or age. Someone who cancelled a trip because of a parent's health, for example, could find their insurer would not pay, if their parent had a pre-existing condition. In a case dealt with by another dispute provider - Financial Services Complaints Ltd - a man spent $24,000 on a trip through North America and Europe. Between booking the trip and travelling, the man was told he had small kidney stones that did not need further treatment. He did not tell his insurer, believing the situation would resolve on its own, but his symptoms flared up while he was overseas and he was admitted to hospital. The trip was cut short. He made an insurance claim that was declined, because the policy excluded pre-existing medical conditions. He and his partner had to pay several thousand dollars for international medical bills and other expenses, said FSCL, which did not uphold his complaint. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.


Scoop
2 days ago
- Scoop
Wet Kiss Share Piano Ballad-Turn-Rock Saloon Single, 'Chick From Nowhere'
[Friday, June 6, 2025] Rising queer punk outfit Wet Kiss share 'Chick From Nowhere', the latest single from their upcoming album Thus Spoke the Broken Chanteuse, out June 27 on limited-edition lipstick-smacked vinyl via Dinosaur City. The new single comes alongside the announcement of an album tour this August, with stops in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. 'Chick from Nowhere' is a janky piano ballad (of pianist Aldo, who Brenna affectionately calls "the Barry Manilow to my Bette Midler'), that descends into a full-blown rock opera. It's about picking up lovers in the early morning, relishing the freedom of being an unknown entity in an unknown city. The melody was written back in Melbourne, the band high on ecstasy and suddenly eager to write a really tight pop song. 'It's not really a standard pop song at all,' laughs Brenna, 'it's more of a rock saloon song.' Thus Spoke the Broken Chanteuse is exactly what the title suggests. Our chanteuse here is the sensational jezebel Brenna O: Part Factory Girl, part Fassbinder heroine, all peroxide locks and shiny, skin-tight '$2 dresses', sneering and growling across the stage, mixing greasy punk with cabaret excess. What is she saying? Well, a few things. Produced by Andrew Huhtanen McEwan, Thus Spoke the Broken Chanteuse is about the grubby pleasures of hopping on the Melbourne-to-Berlin artist pipeline. It's about 'daddy at the abattoir,' slaughtering piggies. It's about gloomy waits at the gender clinic so you can get your estrogen. It's about dingy, crap clubs, desolate glamour, strutting down the street with your dignity in tatters, upskirting, indulgence and the glory of turning fantasy into reality. The album name is also something of a joke, melding a music journalist's snide comment about the band ('broken chanteuse') with a nod to Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The story of Wet Kiss is the story of myth-turned-real. Brenna knew what she wanted — glam-rock mutated for the adderall age — she just needed to find the players. So she put out ads in local rock magazines and found them: daniel dog (they/them - guitar), Al Amour (he/him - piano), Ben Addiction (he/they - bass), Ju Sugar (he/they - lead guitar), Ruby Rabbit (they/them - drums) and Agnes Wailin' (they/them - dubbed 'Screamin'' for their tenacious vocal belts). The band quickly moved in together, quickly put out their beguiling debut record She's So Cool, and quickly built a live reputation. Their performances left crowds gobsmacked: there were floppy bunny ears and buckets of sweat; costume changes and clothes ripped to smithereens; ecstatic howls and hilarious antagonism. Plenty of Thus Spoke the Broken Chanteuse is brimming with this tension – between the hedonistic triumph of inventing oneself, and the dreary texture of modern life. Brenna became well acquainted with this conflict during a long stint in Berlin. Much of the record was written there, and as such, many of the songs are slathered in a thick glob of Weimar decadence. 'I want to carry on that spirit of dirty street decadence, but also the great tradition of self-invention,' says Brenna. Wet Kiss catapulted onto the scene with the release of their debut album She's So Cool via Dero Arcade (cumgirl8, Divide & Dissolve) in 2022. In a somewhat shock move, Olver and daniel dog relocated to Berlin just a month after the album dropped. When plans of their 2024 return became public (alongside whispers of a new record), a frenzy was ignited with fans and media alike. In the nine months since, Wet Kiss have played Melbourne Town Hall for RISING's sold-out DAY TRIPPER festival alongside Bar Italia and HTRK, showcased at SXSW Sydney and made their 'Sup debut for Golden Plains alongside PJ Harvey and Fontaines D.C. On top of that, they've scored support slots with Amyl & the Sniffers, RVG, Spike F*ck, CIVIC, Floodlights and Private Function. This momentum has been bolstered by critical acclaim from influential outlets like Bandcamp, Beat Magazine, Rolling Stone, Gusher Magazine, BBC 6, WFMU, 3RRR, PBS and among others. You can dunk yourself in Wet Kiss' filthy, lavish depths this August as they tour the album across Australia's east coast. Ticket links and more information below. Upcoming Shows