Loose Women star Penny Lancaster in tears as she shares family cancer battle

The 53-year-old, who is married to Sir Rod Stewart, became emotional during Thursday's episode of the ITV show

Penny Lancaster broke down in tears while speaking about a family member's cancer battle on Loose Women. The 53-year-old, who is married to Sir Rod Stewart, became emotional during Thursday's episode as the panel discussed the importance of breast cancer checks.

The mum-of-two was back on the ITV daytime programme alongside Charlene White, Frankie Bridge and Nadia Sawalha. As talk turned to cancer, Penny revealed that while she'd been celebrating a pregnancy, her sister-in-law Louise had received a heartbreaking diagnosis .

Penny became upset as she recalled the moment her brother's wife had shared the news. "I've got a group of girls called 'the secret circle' and that name came about just before I got married. My maid of honour, Louise, she's incredibly strong. It was about 14 years ago she was diagnosed."

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She continued: "Me and my secret circle we did a walk for Breast Cancer Care and at the time it was one in nine that was diagnosed, and of course it's one in seven now and we kind of sat down after the walk and said 'it could be one of us'. Very shortly afterwards, it was my third IVF, I fell pregnant and I was so excited to tell them the news and they didn't want to have to tell me in that same phone call that Louise had found a lump."

The Mirror reports that Penny was overcome with emotion as she said: "She was so brave and she was only 36. So with the NHS only screening at 50, women under the age of 50 must do that self-check because that was the only way she found it because of the advice breast cancer care had given and about the checking.

She concluded: "Women under the age of 40, their breasts are much more dense. So it's harder to actually detect those lumps."