“Cancer changes you.”
Former Home and Away star Alea O’Shea has given a candid update on her cancer journey.
In an interview with Body+Soul, the 25-year-old opened up about her shocking diagnosis, her current treatment and how she’s balancing it all with being a young woman in the public eye.
For Alea, who sought out medical tests after noticing weakness on her left side, getting a clear diagnosis proved difficult.
“It was such a drawn-out process. In a weird way, it felt like I had been preparing for weeks, so in the end I just wanted to know. When they finally said those words – that I had cancer – I was ready to get on with things,” she explained.
“Before I started treatment, my hand got really weak, so I had an MRI [scan] and they discovered a new little tumour sitting on the part of my brain that controls my left hand. My surgeon removed as much as they could, and I’ve only lost sensation – not total movement – in the left side of my body.”
Along with brain surgery, Alea had to undergo surgery to remove her ovary to preserve eggs in case she decides to do IVF in the future. She also had to undergo six weeks of radiation and oral chemotherapy. Now that this treatment has finished for now, she is undergoing rehab to help with the mobility on the left side of her body.
Throughout her own journey with chemo-induced hair-loss, Alea discovered bonded wigs — a type of semi-permanent wig sticks to the scalp or hair. She says it’s been a gamechanger in making her “feel like herself”. That’s why she’s started CEARE, a not-for-profit charity which raises funds to gift bonded wigs to cancer patients in Australia.
“I’m aware of my platform and my privilege, and I want to help other young women in any way I can. Not everyone knows about bonded wigs, and not everyone has the money to afford one. That’s why I started CEARE. We’ve just raised enough money to gift our first wig to a girl in Melbourne, and that’s really exciting,” Alea explained.
“CEARE has given me purpose. I swear having a purpose is one of the most important things in life. If you can wake up in the morning and know your purpose, you’ll be invigorated to get through hardship.”
Despite the hardship, Alea has her eyes set to the future.
“I want to work in LA and live in New York, and even explore projects in the UK. Honestly, more than anything, I just want to feel healthy and happy. My diagnosis has been a necessary perspective shift. My focus is now on spending time with the people I love, creating memories and laughing more. They do say, laughter is the best medicine,” she shared per Body + Soul.
“Cancer changes you. I will never be the person that I once was, but I am still Alea.”
Alea first shared the news of her diagnosis publicly in December 2025.
Taking to TikTok over the weekend, the actor turned social media creator shared the sad news.
“This is a video I obviously thought I’d never have to make, but I’ve recently been diagnosed with brain cancer,” O’Shea shared, explaining that it has been a “crazy few weeks” since a biopsy in November confirmed her diagnosis.
Sitting on her bed in the video, O’Shea explained that she wanted to be transparent about what she was going through so she could try and maintain a sense of normalcy throughout her treatment.
“I’m choosing to be open and honest about this online, because I want to live my life as normally as possible while I’m fighting this,” she explained.
O’Shea went on to detail how she’d first realised something was awry with her health.
“About six weeks ago, I noticed that my smile was a little uneven and it felt harder to talk,” she said.
“I had a few migraines but nothing scary. Then, while I was recently in LA, I lost feeling in two of my fingers which then crept into my wrist, and then my toe.”
O’Shea explained that she brushed off what she was experiencing as a pinched nerve. She went to her physio for treatment but he quickly sent her for a brain scan.
“That’s how we found it,” she explains.
O’Shea explained that while she’s having issues with her hand mobility, she is lucky that the cancer is in a spot in her brain which won’t affect her personality. As for what’s next, the 25-year-old explained that she’s set to have surgery and treatment but in the meantime, she’ll be creating content.
“Thank you for staying through this chapter,” O’Shea told her followers.
“This isn’t gonna become my whole personality, it’s just another part of my story and if it can bring some perspective, comfort or positivity to other people going through it while I am going through it, it’s all I could ever want.”
O’Shea first appeared on Home and Away in 2011, playing Darcy Callahan, the daughter of Heath Braxton (Dan Ewing) and Tegan Callahan (Saskia Burmeister. She played Darcy until 2014, and then returned for a period of time between 2016 to 2017.
Since then, O’Shea has turned to social media where she creates beautifully edited videos on fashion, beauty and lifestyle. She currently has more than 123,000 followers on TikTok and 154,000 on Instagram.
