GB News' Michelle Dewberry's life off-air from prison boyfriend to fatal fall

GB News anchor Michelle Dewberry has faced a lot of adversity in her life before she impressed Lord Alan Sugar with her business acumen in BBC programme The Apprentice.

Raised on a council estate in Kingston upon Hull, Michelle left school aged just 16 with two GCSEs. And just a year later, tragedy struck when her older sister Fiona – who was 19 at the time – died after a fatal fall from a building.

Fiona had been on the eighth floor of a tower block in Hull, leaving her sister “devastated”. She explained: “I felt that she’d been robbed of having a life, so I decided I was going to make mine extraordinary. I wanted a life that was good enough for her and me.”

Michelle shared a three-bedroomed terrace house with her five brothers and sisters, explaining: “Money was an issue. We were only allowed one light on in the house at a time and we didn’t even have a fridge.”

She added to Cosmopolitan: “I got in with a bad crowd and, by the age of 16, I was spending all of my time on a huge council estate in Hull with a boyfriend who was in and out of prison."

With her entrepreneurial head firmly on her shoulders, Michelle went on to win the second ever series of The Apprentice. By 2021 she had landed her prime-time GB News show, Dewbs & Co.

Further tragedy struck in 2014, when Michelle was diagnosed with skin cancer. Seeking medical advice for a strange growth on her nose, the star was reassured twice by doctors that it was just a pimple – until a biopsy revealed she needed urgent surgery, leaving her with a centimetre-deep crater on her face.

She said of the ordeal: “My brush with cancer did not start with a mole - as most people imagine - but with an innocent-looking pimple. I first noticed it on the right side of my nose in spring 2013. I haven't had spots since I was a teenager.

“I didn't realise that the cancer was burrowing its way into my skin. The longer it was left, the more damage it was doing.

“I was lulled into such a false sense of security, the cancer would probably still be growing today if I hadn't bumped into a dermatologist at a Christmas party last December. When I heard the C word I crumbled.”

Tragically, Michelle’s cousin Susan Farrall has also been diagnosed with cancer – but hers is terminal. She contracted mesothelioma, a terminal lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure.

She explained while appearing on GB News: “I was told to probably have about nine to 12 months to live. My diagnosis came after six months of investigations, being treated for post COVID infections. I was coughing and breathless. I had fluid on the lung, which was drained three times - all classic symptoms of mesothelioma, as I know now.

“When I asked why it had taken so long to diagnose despite these classic symptoms, I was told by my consultant that they weren't looking for it with me. I was a 56 year old female in previous good health, and I didn't fit the demographic.”

In her private life, Michelle is loved up with former Crystal Palace FC owner Simon Jordan. The pair share a son – though his delivery was not straightforward.

Michelle gave birth at just 31 weeks in an emergency C-section, and was hospitalised for a month while she recovered from the ordeal. She explained: “I was absolutely delighted to have discovered that I was pregnant. But unbeknownst to me, I was going to end up having a very complicated and scary pregnancy.

“It was a scary, horrible time. It was during Covid as well, which didn't help, but all the time I was told that I was at high risk of infection. I didn't know what was going to happen to me.”

Thankfully, her baby boy was born “happy and healthy” - and Michelle has spent years supporting premature baby charities.