TV star Barry Du Bois recalls moment he was given three months to live
Just one day after the death of Aussie reality TV star Mel Schilling, another legend of our screens has become emotional when discussing his own battle with cancer.
Barry Du Bois is best known for his role as a presenter on the long-running TV show The Living Room, which overlapped with his 15-year battle with incurable cancer.
Du Bois, now 65, became emotional when discussing the moment in 2011 he was told he had just three months to live during an appearance today on the podcast Double A Chattery with Amanda Keller and Anita McGregor.
Watch the video above.
The former builder, designer and developer’s first foray into TV was as host of the reality TV series, The Renovators, which premiered in 2011 but was axed after one season.
He was then chosen to co-host The Living Room beside Keller when it premiered in 2012.
Du Bois became emotional when talking about his close relationship with Keller.
“The beginning of our friendship, honestly, it’s the beginning of the best time in my life,” he said, before recalling their first meeting at a Channel Ten function.
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“I had been through a lot in a short amount of time. And when we say a lot, I had cancer, I’d been given three months to live, I’d had major surgery, I had radiotherapy, I’d had all sorts of stuff,” he said.
“Then I ended up on a TV show, which in hindsight went really well, but they called it a flop.
“And then I met you and that night, I think we talked about everything from my cancer to relationships to IVF, miscarriage all that sort of thing.”
“We were like soulmates, weren’t we? We just went bang,” recalled Keller. “We went deep very quickly.”
They went on to co-host the show for 10 seasons before it ended in 2022.
During that time, Du Bois had a very public battle with cancer.
He was first diagnosed with plasmacytoma myeloma, a cancer of the immune system that attacks healthy bone marrow, in 2010 after the cancer destroyed the vertebra at the top of his spine.
He underwent extensive surgery to stabilise his neck before starting high-dose radiotherapy.
During the podcast, he recalled the moment he was given three months to live.
“I was in a room with three other doctors; three doctors and my team as they called themselves,” he said.
“And the first doctor said to me, ‘My best advice is you go home, tidy up your affairs and spend as much time as you can with your loved ones. You’ve got about three months to live’.
“That was the Christmas of 2011 and I said, ‘Thanks for your advice, not really interested in that’.
“And I said to the next two guys, ‘I don’t know where you’re at with this, but I believe in me and I’m not interested in that narrative, so if you want to be in my team, I want to know that you believe that I can beat this, and if you do, then we’ll work together’.
“Option A for me was living. There was no option B.”
Du Boise survived. Then in 2017 he was diagnosed with a related cancer, multiple myeloma, an incurable form of blood cancer.
At the time he had twins who were then aged just six, and vowed to fight the disease.
He embarked on multiple rounds of chemotherapy, followed by a stem cell transplant.
Keller recalled the moment Du Bois shared his diagnosis on TV.
“When your cancer came back, we were on The Living Room. That hugely emotional episode where you told the audience what had happened,” she said, before asking if he ever regretted going public.
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“The idea for that was that we would announce it [and the viewers] would see me go to the depths, which it is. That’s what cancer treatment is,” he said.
“You saw me lose my hair, you saw me lose weight. I was struggling in a lot of ways, but I knew deep down that they would also see me come back and be strong again and thrive after cancer.
“And I’m very happy, very proud that thousands of people every day, every year, say, ‘I was in that journey with you. My dad was going through this, my uncle was going through that, and seeing you every Friday night kept us going’. So, it’s a very rewarding thing to do.”
Dubois has previously revealed he will never be cancer-free, but told the podcast he was doing well.
“[I’m] going fantastic. You know that I’m doing really well. My beautiful children are growing. I stay as healthy as I can and loving life,” he said.
Du Bois has been married to Carol Tobler since 1999. They share twins, a son and a daughter, who are now 13.
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