Katherine Ryan put on a brave face as she was seen for the first time since revealing she has been diagnosed with skin cancer.

The Canadian comedian, 41, revealed on Friday that she’s battling melanoma for the second time, after having a mole on her arm removed. 

She made the revelation in her podcast, Telling Everybody Everything, explaining that she learned this week the mole was cancerous. 

Katherine headed out make-up free on Sunday in her first appearance since revealing her diagnosis in a video, as she arrived for her show in Blackpool. 

She beamed at the camera as she sported a sherpa fleece adorned with a bird pattern, a purple cap and jogging bottoms. 

Katherine now requires more surgery on Monday to ensure the entire mᴀss in her arm has been removed. 

Katherine Ryan put on a brave face as she was seen for the first time since revealing she has been diagnosed with skin cancer, as she arrived for her show in Blackpool

Katherine headed out make-up free on Sunday in her first appearance since revealing her diagnosis in a video

The mother-of-three explained: ‘The only reason that they agreed to remove it was because I went to a fancy private place in South Kensington and I paid them a grand… I don’t know if on the NHS they ever would have removed this mole.’

While Katherine did not trust the NHS would have removed the mole, she revealed she faced different problems while seeing private doctors. 

She explained that she had paid £300 for a seven-minute consultation with a doctor, who wrongly informed her the mole wasn’t cancerous.

Yet she was inspired to keep pushing with her concerns after following Teddi Mellencamp’s journey. The Real Housewives star, 43, has been battling skin cancer since 2022 and this year revealed doctors had found three tumours in her brain. 

Katherine recalled: ‘He gave me the news that I wanted! I think it’s really easy to take a diagnosis of you’re healthy and walk away, you go “great I’m healthy” and you don’t think about it again because that is the easiest news.

‘But the mole kept changing – I know a lot about melanoma, I had a melanoma as a very young woman, stage two on my leg – and I’ve spoken about that before. 

‘Even that didn’t look traditionally like melanoma to me, fair enough it had some discolouration and asymmetry and a bit of black and red. It was a flat mole, not that bad and not that big, but it was stage two melanoma so that was bad. 

‘I had to have full general anesthetic and surgery to have a golf-ball size of my leg because – if you know about melanoma, you know it’s a ᴅᴇᴀᴅly form of skin cancer and it spreads quickly.’

She beamed at the camera as she sported a sherpa fleece adorned with a bird pattern, a purple cap and jogging bottoms

The Canadian comedian, 41, revealed on Friday that she’s battling melanoma for the second time, after having a mole on her arm removed

Discussing her current cancer battle, she went on:  ‘I just felt like this mole wasn’t right. It’s on my arm, I showed pictures of it on social media, this is like the hole from having it removed. 

‘I went in and I wanted the doctor to remove a bigger piece of it and sтιтch it up in a straight line. 

‘But even when he looked at it, he was like “not melanoma, totally fine, I will do the shave and send it away for histology and if there’s any borders that we missed, then we will do the deeper cut”.’

Yet the test confirmed that she needed the deeper cut, and she continued:  ‘It just feels crazy to me, like what could have happened if I hadn’t been my own advocate – and I will continue to be my own advocate.

‘If I hadn’t pushed, if I had taken that good answer the first time and walked away. Then I would have had melanoma just growing and spreading in my arm and I would say “oh no the doctor says it’s fine, it’s fine” and god knows how far that would have gone.’ 

Katherine shared her shock at the diagnosis, revealing how she has been careful to protect her skin.

Explaining how she broke the news to husband Bobby Kootstra, she shared: ‘I was upset when I called [Bobby] because I feel very lucky but I also feel like what the f**k? 

‘It’s not ideal to have melanoma twice in your life and I obviously have a genetic predisposition, I am someone with type one, Celtic skin, I have over 100 moles. 

It’s the second time Katherine has been diagnosed with the disease, having been diagnosed with Stage 2 cancer in 2004 (pictured on The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer in 2021) 

‘I don’t go in the sun, I wear SPF all the time, I cover my body, I cover my arms, I cover my face, but here’s my second go with melanoma that I know of! I’m thinking f**k what other moles do I need to get checked?’

She added in a TikTok video: ‘This time luckily I caught it early, I don’t think it has spread.’ 

It’s the second time Katherine has been diagnosed with the disease, having been diagnosed with Stage 2 cancer in 2004. 

She said previously: ‘The cancer wasn’t that serious. It wasn’t into my lymph nodes, I didn’t have to have chemotherapy. 

‘It did recur, but it was easily dealt with. I feel like I was really lucky just to get that lesson, that little smack on the a**e of “Hey, wait a minute. Listen to your body, here.”‘

She previously joked that moving to the UK had been the ‘best thing’ for her because of the lack of warm weather, she told The Guardian: ‘I just joked that it was free lipo. If you’re prone to skin cancer, then living in the UK is the best thing you can do.’