By Amy Denman

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Alex Kingston has revealed she is in recovery after battling uterine cancer in secret last year.

Strictly Come Dancing star Alex, who is partnered with Johannes Radebe in this year’s series, received her devastating diagnosis last year after she “haemorrhaged” on stage while performing in a play last summer. Initially, Alex had written off her symptoms, which included bloating and aching, as “old age” and she “just sort of accepted it” – however she now knows that what she was experiencing was symptoms of her illness.

The former ER star, 62, then underwent a hysterectomy and radiation therapy and she has now spoken about her health crisis for the first time.

She told The Independent newspaper: “I had a major operation. I had to have a hysterectomy, I had to go into radiation therapy, and that took up a huge part of my life …

“I had assumed that the way I was feeling was old age, and I just sort of accepted it. I thought: ‘OK, this is what it’s like to be in my sixties.’ But a lot of how I was feeling was to do with my illness.

“I never went down the cancer road in my head. It was a shock, because I have a very positive outlook on life in general. Even though my body was telling me there was something very seriously wrong, I kept thinking: ‘Oh, I’ve got a bad UTI or fibroids’.”

Alex didn’t seek medical treatment until after her run in the play was over. Doctors then found cancer in her fallopian tubes but it hadn’t spread to her ovaries. She later underwent a hysterectomy and radiation therapy.

Speaking about life after her diagnosis and treatment, Alex revealed: “Despite having gone through all of that – and any cancer is really tough to accept, to steel yourself to go through all of the necessary procedures to get back into health – the minute I had the operation, I suddenly felt like myself again … [I] hadn’t felt like that for years.”

Now, Alex feels “like Superwoman” as she takes part in the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing.

The actress now wants to urge others to seek medical advice about any mysterious symptoms they may experience.

She said: “Womb cancer is really tricky because it is so sneaky. What I would say is, the body does know – and that was the body saying to me: ‘Help! There’s something really wrong.”

‘It’s so important to seek advice and have a check-up.”