‘The Crown’ Actress Olivia Williams Opens Up About Why She’ll Never Be Cancer-Free

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Olivia Williams is sharing details about her battle with cancer, explaining that due to a late diagnosis, she’ll always carry the impact of cancer in her life.

The actress, known for her roles in ‘The Crown’, ‘The Sixth Sense’, ‘Dune: Prophecy’ and ‘The Ghost Writer’, along with numerous other productions, opened up in a recent conversation with ‘The Times’.

Over the course of four long years, I journeyed to see no less than ten physicians, hoping to unravel the mystery behind my persistent symptoms – limbs that ached, unrelenting fatigue, and chronic diarrhea. Initially, I was mistakenly diagnosed with lupus and perimenopause. However, it wasn’t until a doctor made a crucial discovery that changed everything: a rare, cancerous tumor nestled within my pancreas.

If I had been accurately diagnosed in the four years I’ve been expressing my illness, instead of being told I was experiencing menopause, irritable bowel syndrome, or mentally unwell – I used that term deliberately, as one doctor suggested a psychiatric evaluation for me – then one operation may have resolved the issue entirely, and I would now be cancer-free, which is something I can no longer achieve.

Williams is actively promoting charitable contributions for Pancreatic Cancer UK and striving to increase understanding about the illness. Unfortunately, due to its late detection, the tumor has spread to her liver and additional metastases keep emerging. In her own words, she described it as a constant game of “whack-a-mole,” where new growths appear and need to be treated each time.

The actress from Rushmore expressed her feelings by saying, ‘I approach with an eager, sunny expression like a puppy, only to receive unfortunate news, making me think, oh dear, I’ve been fooled again.’ She explained that new metastases were discovered either just before Christmas or during a summer vacation. Over the past three years, they seemed to appear too close to major blood vessels for treatment, which meant we had to watch them grow, a truly dreadful sensation.

For a span of two years, Williams underwent Lutathera therapy on four separate occasions. This treatment is designed as targeted internal radiotherapy.

She stated that she entered a room at King’s College Hospital, where individuals wearing protective hazmat suits arrived with a lead container holding radioactive material. This substance was injected into her, making her radioactive. The intention was to offer her around one to three years of respite from treatment, but unfortunately, the metastases did not vanish as hoped.

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2025-04-21 10:24