Shelly Horton has opened up about her experience with menopause as she prepares to release a tell-all book about her ordeal.
The Today Extra presenter, 51, has long been open about her struggle with perimenopause and admitted to Stellar this week that the condition ‘broke’ her.
‘I’m living proof that you can go through dark times and come out. It broke me… but I rebuilt,’ she said.
Perimenopause typically affects women between 40 – 50 years old, and is the transitional phase before menopause where their hormone levels start to fluctuate, causing symptoms like irregular periods and mood changes.
Shelly added she hadn’t even heard of perimenopause until she found herself in hospital in 2020 to undergo an ablation – a procedure to stop persistent bleeding.
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Shelly Horton has opened up about her experience with menopause as she prepares to release a book about her ordeal
Doctors at the time told her that she might have cancer, sending her for an ultrasound.
When the test proved negative, doctors told her that she must be ‘stressed’ and to ‘take up a hobby’.
‘I drove home in tears, blaming myself, and didn’t go and see another doctor for nine months,’ she admitted.
Shelly added that it was a consultation with friend and TV medico Dr Ginny Mansberg that helped her understand her experience and dispel her preconceived notions about menopause.
‘I had that stereotype in my brain of grey-haired old ladies clutching their pearls and fanning themselves,’ she said.
‘I didn’t understand that perimenopause can last 10 years… so, in fact, I was right in the average age group.’
Shelly has since become an ardent spokesperson on the matter, sharing her experiences at the first parliamentary round table on menopause.
It was a historic moment, as it was the first time menopause had been mentioned in the n Parliament.
The Today Extra presenter has been open about her struggle with perimenopause, and admitted to Stellar this week that the condition ‘broke’ her
‘I’m living proof that you can go through dark times and come out,’ she said. ‘Perimenopause broke me, but I rebuilt me’. Shelly is pictured with husband Darren Robinson
She is also set to release a book this week, I’m Your Peri Godmother, detailing her experiences, as part of a continued effort to de-stigmatise the issue that millions of women deal with.
It comes after Shelly shared the shock and heartbreak she felt when her doctor told her she would need to have a hysterectomy due to severe bleeding and perimenopause symptoms.
‘I’m shocked at how overwhelmed and teary I feel about it’ she wrote in her column for Nine Honey in 2024.
Shelly, who has been married to husband Darren Robinson for over a decade, added that while she has never wanted children, she has still felt some ‘grief’ over losing the reproductive organ.
‘I’m proudly childfree by choice, so I am furious this organ that I haven’t ever needed gives me so much misery,’ she wrote.
‘I’ve joked to friends I want to sell my uterus on eBay – “One uterus. Never used. Still in box!”
‘Yet, just as I laugh, I also feel a mix of anger, sadness and a sense of betrayal by my own body.’
Shelly stressed that ‘a uterus does not define a woman’ and added her story is a ‘call to action for all of us to redefine womanhood beyond biological functions.’
Shelly is set to release a book this week, I’m Your Peri Godmother, detailing her experiences
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TV star Shelly Horton, 48, opens up about her 'overwhelming anxiety' and 'emotional outbursts' during peri-menopause – days after revealing her little-known painful symptom
She has been open in the past about why she doesn’t want to have children with her husband, and they are perfectly content to be raising a family that includes two dogs instead.
But Shelly admitted she was rattled by an email from a troll which labelled Horton as an ‘obese feminist’ he would like to see ‘get off TV’.
The full email read: ‘I’m so happy you don’t have kids, now just to get you off TV would be the best Christmas gift any man could ask for. Obese feminist is nothing to be proud of.’
‘Trolls don’t normally worry me. I get messages like that a lot as do most women in the media,’ she said the following day.
‘But I’ve been working very long hours on some big new projects, so I was tired, he got under my skin. Thank you all for being my cheer squad… felt like a warm hug. Suck on that,’ she added, referring to the email’s author.