London - She recently revealed her heartbreak over never being able to have a child.
Now Sue Perkins has opened up about being diagnosed with the brain tumour that left her unable to conceive, and the shocking homophobia she encountered from the doctor who broke the news.
Rather than easing her into the life-changing announcement, the Great British Bake Off host said the consultant began with questions about whether or not she had a boyfriend.
When Perkins, now 45, replied that she was gay, he then dropped the bombshell in the worst way possible.
Recounting the 2007 exchange in her autobiography, Spectacles, Perkins said he remarked: ‘Oh, OK. Well that makes it easier. You’re infertile. You can’t have kids.’
The brain tumour is benign and located on her pituitary gland, affecting her hormones. Perkins said that while she was initially ‘OK’ about the diagnosis, the news that it meant she couldn’t have children – and the tactless delivery of the consultant – left her reeling.
After a year, she eventually made a complaint about the way the doctor had treated her.
Writing about how the news of her infertility affected her, Perkins, who is in a relationship with TV presenter Anna Richardson, 44, said: ‘It really did hit me, as it hits a lot of people, I’m sure, when it’s too late – this is not going to happen.
‘I can’t now have it as an out of sight, out of mind possibility, lurking. It’s just not going to happen, it’s not going to ever be part of my life. And although I never yearned to physically have my own child, it felt like bereavement. It really did.’
If Perkins had been diagnosed sooner she could have conceived with the help of drugs.
Explaining the reasons why she originally put off having children, she told The Sunday Times Magazine: ‘Sometimes I get into the mindset that being heterosexual is a brave new world because you can conceive, and you work out the rest of it once you’re pregnant.
‘For me, it just felt like I was sitting there with a pencil going, what’s the best way to have a daddy? What’s the best way to have two mommies? And it just felt like I just had a f****** pencil in my hand, and this isn’t the way to start being a mother, and that’s what was really painful.’
Born in Croydon to a Catholic father and a Jewish mother, Perkins thinks she inherited her own fragile nature from her parents.
She said: ‘They are very eccentric and tinged with anxiety and depression. Anxiety runs through families.’
She also described her feelings of sadness on seeing her comedy partner and Bake Off co-presenter Mel Giedroyc, 47, have children while she could not.
‘She’s crossed the Rubicon,’ Perkins said. ‘She’s gone somewhere I can never go... We’ve gone everywhere, hand-in-hand together, but I can’t go here.’
Giedroyc has two children with her husband, TV director Ben Morris.
Daily Mail