BBC Radio 1 DJ Hannah Wants has revealed she has been diagnosed with cancer for the fourth time, prompting an outpouring of support from fellow stars.
The 38-year-old house music producer, real name Hannah Alicia Smith, said the news has been a ‘unexpected, monumental shock to all systems’ for her.
Birmingham-born Wants was first diagnosed with breast cancer eight years ago and told her Instagram followers of her latest diagnosis: ‘My world has flipped.’
She said her time and energy had been ‘redirected’ and her ‘journey to full health and wellness (mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually) has restarted’.
Wants also asked her 266,000 followers to ‘tell your people you love them’ and said ‘don’t give up’ to ‘anyone out there struggling for whatever reason’.
She received support from stars including JLS singer Marvin Humes who said: ‘Thinking of you Hannah and sending big love and strength – what a powerful post.’
Also responding to her post was BBC radio DJ Spoony who wrote: ‘I don’t think I’ve ever read a more beautiful and positive post. H, I love the energy here. Sending hugs, love and all the strength to help you deal with it. You absolute champion.’
In the ‘My Plot Twist’ post on December 30, Wants wrote: ‘This definitely isn’t the end of year post I wanted to be writing nor how I wanted to be entering 2025.
‘However my path has been redirected and I have no other option than to surrender to what is and have faith that the universe has bigger and better plans for me.
‘I recently received cancer diagnosis number four. Some of you will know small snippets of my story, some of you won’t know anything.
‘But long story short, eight years ago I was first diagnosed with breast cancer and since then I have experienced three separate recurrences. I went public with diagnosis one and two and diagnosis three l chose to keep private.
‘What I’m dealing with now, diagnosis number four, has been an unexpected, monumental shock to all systems.
‘My world has flipped, my life path, my time and my energy have all been redirected and my journey to full health and wellness (mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually) has restarted.’
She urged followers to love your people (and your pets AKA kids with fur), don’t take that s**t for granted either. Tomorrow is never promised and that goes for me, you and our loved ones.
‘Tell your people you love them. Show them you love them. Appreciate them. Be present with them. Here’s to healing, relaxing my nervous system and getting into energetic alignment with the highest outcome.’
She added that she was taking four months off from touring to ‘put myself in the best place possible to heal via an integrative approach using some conventional treatment and leaning more heavily than ever into the holistic approach’.
Wants continued: ‘Before now, I’d see taking time off as weakness. We glamorise overworking and wear burnout as some kind of badge of honour, but I’m realising now more than ever that true strength lies in the ability to take a step back.’
She added that her next single Hold Me will still be released as scheduled on February 7.
In a later update posted yesterday, Wants wrote: ‘I now have everything I need in place to begin my healing journey and I’m feeling very grateful. Is this the path I would have chosen entering 2025? Hell no. Is this gonna be the most challenging period of my life so far? 100.
‘I’m surrendering to the idea that sometimes the universe will ruin your plans so that your plans don’t ruin you and I’ve chosen to embrace and have full faith that this test is gonna elevate me to where I was always destined to be and who I was always destined to become. What that means yet I don’t know but I’m rolling with it.
‘I’ve finally been forced to take a break from what has been a life of chaos for over a decade with zero rest for my nervous system and little honouring of my feminine energy, balance, soul nourishment and stillness.
‘You have two choices: use your energy to worry… or use your energy to believe, enjoy, create, grow, manifest, and heal.’
Wants began DJing in 2002 and has been professional for 15 years.
However she is also a former professional footballer who played as a striker for Aston Villa, Leicester City and the England U17, U19 and U23 youth teams.
Wants eventually quit football to focus on being a DJ and had her big break in 2010 when she relocated to Ibiza and won a series of competitions.
Her first cancer diagnosis came in 2017 when she was aged 30 and she had surgery to remove cancerous cells in her breast.
Then in 2020 Wants revealed she was battling breast cancer for a second time – receiving the diagnosis around the same time her girlfriend Luisa Eusse’s romance with Strictly Come Dancing star Neil Jones came to light.
Eusse and Wants split in July that year, then Eusse and Jones went public with their new romance in August. But by December, it was confirmed they had also split.
Jones – previously married to Strictly dancer Katya Jones – is now engaged to Love Island contestant Chyna Mills. They had their first child, Havana, in October 2023.