YouTuber Grace Helbig has revealed she has been diagnosed with triple-positive breast cancer.
The content creator shared the “shocking” news in an eight-minute video on her YouTube and Instagram page.
Addressing her fans, she started the video by saying, “I don’t know how to do this, so we’re just going to do this.
“I have breast cancer.”
Ms Helbig said she has now had a “decent” amount of time to process the diagnosis and to start “the process”, after being told the news last month.
Ms Helbig joined the video streaming site 16 years ago and has now accumulated over two million subscribers – she is known for her viral challenges and comedic vlogs.
In the video, she said: “From every doctor or medical professional or person who has any knowledge about cancer, they have said it’s super treatable, highly beatable.”
“We’re going for cure not remission here. Which is exciting, encouraging, helpful, good.”
Ms Helbig said the treatment plan “looks like” six rounds of chemotherapy, which she said is then followed by hormonal therapy.
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The YouTuber said she wanted to open up to fans as she has felt as though she had been “existing with a big secret.”
Ms Helbig said before her diagnosis, she had noticed a “weird lump” in her left breast, which she brought up in her gynaecologist appointment.
“I had sort of noticed a weird lump in my left breast, but I really had to talk myself into bringing it up to her in the appointment because I thought I was just a stupid little girl that didn’t know how girl bodies worked and it’s probably just muscle tissue,” she said.
“Thank God I listened to that little voice inside of me that finally got the courage to bring it up to her because she also thought it was abnormal.”
She also encouraged viewers to “get those lumps checked” and advised people not to be afraid to “ask a doctor what you might think is a stupid question.”
‘I’m ready to take this on’
After reaching out to her gynaecologist, Ms Helbig was then sent in for a mammogram and an ultrasound.
She said she felt “unsettled” after the nurse came back and ordered her to get a biopsy.
“The real kicker is when I got the biopsy,” she said.
She explained that the doctor that was doing the biopsy mentioned her own diagnosis five years ago, which Ms Helbig said, “I think in hindsight she might have been trying to show me… ‘look at where I’m at five years later. I’m a doctor doing your biopsy. Not all hope is lost.'”
YouTuber Hank Green, who also recently revealed he had been diagnosed with cancer, shared his support for Ms Helbig publicly in a tweet with heart emojis.
Image: Pic: vlogbrothers/YouTube
Ms Helbig mentioned the two of them have been in touch and said: “I have been texting with him and his videos have been so incredibly helpful.
“And I am now eagerly awaiting his cancer stand-up to read through, which he has promised to send me because I’m going to need comedy through this process.”
Looking into the future, the YouTube star said she will still continue to make episodes for her podcast This Might Get Weird.
Ending the video, Ms Helbig added: “I’m doing well, and I’m ready to take this on.”
According to the National Cancer Institute, triple-positive breast cancer is a type of breast cancer in which the tumour cells have estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and a larger-than-normal number of HER2 receptors on their surface.
Triple-positive cancers tend to be more aggressive and often occur in younger people.
HER2-positive – is a breast cancer that tests positive for a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2).
“This protein promotes the growth of cancer cells,” the Mayo Clinic website says.
There are different treatments available depending on the type of cancer and stage. Cancers that are further along may be treated with chemotherapy, radiation, and other targeted or hormone therapies.
Bruce Springsteen is to release seven albums of mostly unheard material this summer.
The US singer said the songs, written and re-recorded between 1983 and 2018, were being made public after he began completing “everything I had in my vault” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a short video posted on Instagram, Springsteen said the albums were “records that were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released”.
The 83-song collection is being released in a box set called Tracks II: The Lost Albums and goes on sale on 27 June.
Some 74 of the tracks have never been heard before.
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Springsteen first teased the release on Wednesday morning with a short social media video accompanied by text which said: “What was lost has been found”.
Tracks II is the follow-up to the star’s first Tracks volume, a four-CD collection of 66 unreleased songs, released in 1998.
Image: Bruce Springsteen at New York’s Carnegie Hall at a tribute to Patti Smith last month. Pic: PA
The New Jersey-born rocker, nicknamed The Boss, last released a studio album in 2022.
Only the Strong Survive was a collection of covers, including songs by Motown and soul artists, such as the Four Tops, The Temptations, The Supremes, Frankie Wilson and Jimmy Ruffin.
The late soul legend Sam Moore, who died in January and was a frequent Springsteen collaborator, sang on two of the tracks.
A man who stalked Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas for six years has avoided jail.
Kyle Shaw, 37, got a 20-month suspended sentence and a lifetime restraining order on contacting Ballas, her mother, niece, and former partner.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that he thought Ballas was his aunt and “began a persistent campaign of contact”.
“He believed, and it’s evident from what he was told by his mother, that her late brother was his father,” said prosecutor Nicola Daley.
The court heard there was no evidence he was wrong, and “limited evidence” he was correct.
Ms Daley said Shaw’s messages had accused Ballas of being to blame for the death of her brother, who took his own life in 2003 aged 44.
He also set up social media accounts in his name.
Shaw had pleaded guilty to stalking the former dancer between August 2017 and November 2023 at a hearing in February.
Incidents included following Ballas’s 86-year-old mother, Audrey Rich, while she was shopping and telling her she was his grandmother.
The court heard in messages to Mrs Rich, Shaw had asked: “Where’s my dad?”
Ballas was so worried for her mother’s safety that she moved her from Merseyside to London.
Image: Kyle Shaw outside court on the day of his sentencing. Pic: PA
In October 2020, Ballas called police after Shaw messaged her and said: “Do you want me to kill myself, Shirley?”
Posts on X included one alongside an image of her home address that warned: “You ruined my life, I’ll ruin yours and everyone’s around you.”
Another referenced a book signing and said: “I can’t wait to meet you for the first time Aunty Shirley. Hopefully I can get an autograph.”
The court was told Ballas’s niece Mary Assall, former partner Daniel Taylor and colleagues from Strictly Come Dancing and ITV’s Loose Women were also sent messages.
‘I know where you live’
On one occasion in late 2023, Shaw called Mr Taylor and told him he knew where the couple lived and described Ballas’s movements.
The court heard the 64-year-old TV star become wary of socialising and stopped using public transport.
Prosecutor Ms Daley said: “She described having sleepless nights worrying about herself and her family’s safety and being particularly distressed when suggestions were made to her that she and her mother were responsible for her brother taking his own life.”
Image: Ballas has been head judge on Strictly Come Dancing since 2017. Pic: PA
Shaw cried and wiped away tears as he was sentenced on Tuesday.
The judge said the stalking stemmed from his mother telling him Ballas’s brother, David Rich, was his biological father.
“I’m satisfied that your motive for this offending was a desire to seek contact with people you genuinely believed were your family,” he said.
“Whether in fact there’s any truth in that belief is difficult, if not impossible, to determine.”
Image: Shaw pictured at court in February. Pic: PA
Defence lawyer John Weate said Shaw had been told the story by his mother “in his mid to late teens” and had suffered “complex mental health issues” since he was a child.
He added: “He now accepts that Miss Ballas and her family don’t wish to have any contact with him and, importantly, he volunteered the information that he has no intention of contacting them again.”
Shaw, of Whetstone Lane in Birkenhead, also admitted possessing cannabis and was ordered to undertake a rehab programme.
Gary Glitter has been made bankrupt after failing to pay more than £500,000 in damages to a woman he abused when she was 12 years old.
She sued the disgraced singer, whose real name is Paul Gadd, after he was found guilty of attacking her and two other schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980.
Glitter, 80, was jailed for 16 years in 2015 and released in 2023 but was recalled to prison less than six weeks later after breaching his parole conditions.
A judge awarded the woman £508,800, including £381,000 in lost earnings and £7,800 for future therapy and treatment, saying she was subjected to abuse “of the most serious kind”.
The court heard she had not worked for decades due to the trauma of being repeatedly raped and “humiliated” by the singer.
Image: Glitter was jailed for 16 years in 2015. Pic: Met Police/PA
Glitter was made bankrupt last month at the County Court at Torquay and Newton Abbot, in Devon – the county where he is reportedly serving his sentence in Channings Wood prison, in Newton Abbot.
Richard Scorer, head of abuse law at Slater and Gordon, the law firm representing the woman, said: “We confirm that Gadd has been made bankrupt following our client’s application.
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“As he has done throughout, Gadd has refused to cooperate with the process and continues to treat his victims with contempt.
“We hope and trust that the parole board will take his behaviour into account in any future parole applications, as it clearly demonstrates that he has never changed, shows no remorse and remains a serious risk to the public.”
Glitter was first jailed for four months in 1999 after he admitted possessing around 4,000 indecent images of children.
He was expelled from Cambodia in 2002, and in March 2006 was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam where he spent two-and-a-half years in prison.
His sentence for the 2016 convictions expires in February 2031.
Glitter was automatically released from HMP The Verne, a low-security prison in Portland, Dorset, in February 2023 after serving half of his fixed-term determinate sentence.
But he was back behind bars weeks later after reportedly trying to access the dark web and images of children.