Yahoo News Paul Burrell: Cancer treatment affecting his relationship with husband
The former royal butler said cancer treatment has made him emotional and admitted 'I’m going to be a mess for a very long time.'
Watch: Paul Burrell opens up on his cancer journey
Paul Burrell has shared concern about the affects of his cancer treatment on his marriage.
The 64-year-old former royal butler – who recently revealed he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer –told ITV's Lorraine that battling the disease did not just affect him, but also his relationship with husband Graham Cooper.
Burrell said: “This isn’t about me is it? It’s about the big picture – it’s about my hubby, Coop. It’s about our relationship, the way forward, so I had to talk about all of that. That’s a very important part of the jigsaw.”
Read more: Paul Burrell emotional as he reveals cancer diagnosis on TV
He tearfully admitted: "I get so emotional because of the hormone therapy, which I’ll have to continue after the operation. So I’m going to be a mess for a very long time.
“But you have to trade off certain things to get to a point of living.”
The former footman to Queen Elizabeth II and butler to Princess Diana married Cooper, 60, in 2017, a year after splitting from his wife Maria Cosgrove, with whom he shares two sons.
The reality TV star – who was runner-up on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! in 2004 – shared his treatment journey on the show as he attended the The Christie hospital in Manchester, to meet his consultant for the first time.
He confessed: “It’s a little bit scary."
Burrell is due to undergo a two-hour operation to inject radium into his prostate to fight the cancer cells.
He said: "My recovery will be for the rest of that week. And then for the next three weeks I’ll have to go to radiotherapy appointments to kill it from the outside as well as the inside.
“Hopefully at the end of that period I’ll be all clear and just battle with the hormone treatment, which will last for a considerable time.”
Burrell previously revealed he was diagnosed with cancer after going for medical check up for a new TV show.
He explained: “In the summer I had to go for a medical for a TV programme I was doing and I had a full MOT. Out of that came a surprisingly high PSA test [a chemical released by the prostate gland]. I had no idea what a PSA test was.
“So I went to my GP, he said, ‘This is unusual’ and he examined me and sent me for an MRI scan. And the MRI scan of course was the window in which they looked through and saw a shadow on my prostate.”
Burrell was a footman at Buckingham Palace, serving the late Queen Elizabeth, before transferring to Highgrove House where he was butler to Princess Diana.
After Diana's death he published memoir A Royal Duty, about his time working for the Royal Family in 2003.
In Prince Harry's recent autobiography Spare, Burrell is referred to, but not by name, as he claimed the butler's book "made my blood boil".
He told Lorraine: “Why did he call me ‘Mummy’s Butler?’ Why couldn't he have asked, come to me personally and said he wasn't happy with the situation?
Read more: Paul Burrell: Diana would be 'very upset and unhappy' at Harry & Meghan documentary
“I’ve always defended him down to the last minute and now I’m thinking, ‘Harry, you’ve lost the plot.’"
