Sort Your Life Out star Dilly Carter has opened up about the dark truth behind her love of tidying on Lorraine – and shared a health update with fans.  

The 44 year old appeared on the ITV show on Tuesday to talk about the brand new series of the Stacey Solomon programme. 

Dilly has been a decluttering expert on the BBC show since it started in 2021.

Host Lorraine Kelly, 65, was keen to find where she found her interest in cleaning from, and the telly favourite revealed it was influenced by her childhood. 

Dilly said: ‘Basically I grew up in a really chaotic household. 

‘My mum and dad were constantly working, the house was at the bottom of their priority list. 

Sort Your Life Out’s Dilly Carter reveals harrowing truth behind her love of tidying on Lorraine – and shares poignant cancer update

The 44-year-old is a decluttering expert on Sort Your Life Out 

The star said of her mum’s mental health growing up: ‘She was bipolar, she was sectioned 10-15 times throughout my childhood. ‘My house was the thing that suffered’

‘And my mum had mental health issues from when I was 11 years old.

‘So that’s why the house got into real disarray and it got worse.

‘From the time I was 11 to in my 20s, my mum’s mental health really declined.

‘She was bipolar, she was sectioned 10-15 times throughout my childhood. 

‘My house was the thing that suffered. 

‘So my way of helping was to organise, try and clear up.’ 

According to the NHS website, the main symptom of bipolar disorder is extreme changes to your mood. 

She added: ‘When my dad pᴀssed away and I went to go and visit my mum, her house was in total disarray, so I started taking before and after and I changed her house in the course of a weekend. 

The BBC show returns to our screens on Tuesday evening

‘I thought ‘God, I’m pretty good at this and I’m pretty good at doing this quite quickly,’ so I thought ‘maybe I could make this into a business.’” 

Dilly also spoke about her own health on the ITV show. 

The TV star was diagnosed with stage one cancer of the womb in October 2022.

She then returned to the much-loved show in September 2023 after her diagnosis.

The BBC One favourite shared with viewers how she is doing now. 

Dilly said: ‘Compartmentalising my feelings, the way I was, what I went through, I would think “right okay, well this is this part of my life, I now just have to deal with this. And, this is another part of my life… but for now all I need to do is just focus on getting better, getting through this moment and getting to the end.”

‘I knew I had a goal and I had a focus.

‘I’m lucky that I am quite a positive person.

Sort Your Life Out hit our screens in 2021

Womb (uterus) cancer 

Womb cancer is cancer that affects the womb (uterus). It’s most common in women who’ve been through menopause.Anyone with a womb can get womb cancer.The womb is where a baby grows during pregnancy.Most womb cancer usually starts in the lining of the womb (endometrium), this is also known as endometrial cancer.How serious the womb cancer is depends on how big it is, if it has spread and your general health  Advertisement

‘I’m lucky that I saw the light at the end of the tunnel because a lot of people don’t. 

‘I was lucky that I had a huge amount of support around me, because throughout my whole cancer journey I was working, I was filming and the episode which is about to come out now [Sort Your Life Out] was when I was going through treatment and I was really poorly.’

Despite being through some really tough times with her health, she has managed to see the positives in life.  

She added: ‘It’s been an amazing journey, but a tough one, as anyone who is a cancer survivor realises. 

‘You have this huge amount of survivors guilt where you think you’re surrounded by people in a hospital, that are really poorly and that don’t make it.

‘So the fact that I am sat here today, on a sofa talking to you, doing what I love best, on a show that I love that is just life changing for so many people, is just unbelievable.’   

Sort Your Life Out, which has had four successful series, follows Stacey and a team of experts transform guests’ cluttered homes. 

Stacey is joined by experts Robert Bent, Iwan Carrington and Sophie Hinchliffe. 

Lorraine airs weekdays from 9am on ITV1 and is available to stream on ITVX.