A Stunning British Beauty of the 1970s Aged Gracefully for Decades, Until a Cruel Illness Changed Everything – How She Looks Now at 73

There is a photograph from another era that tells you everything about the woman she once was. She is standing in the water, tanned and blonde, wearing a wide smile that seems entirely unrehearsed. She looks like someone who has never had a bad day in her life. For a long time, that image defined her.

That photograph is a long time ago now. And the woman in it is facing something few could have predicted.

Angie Best, 73, the former wife of the late footballing legend George Best, is currently receiving treatment in Switzerland for advanced colon cancer that has spread to her liver. In a series of candid social media updates, she has spoken openly about the visible toll her treatment has taken, including significant hair loss and skin reactions caused by immunotherapy.

A longtime health and wellness advocate, Angie is as well known for her commitment to clean living as for her years in the public eye. She has spent decades sharing her approach to nutrition, fitness, and mindset with a loyal online following.

The physical changes that treatment has brought have therefore carried a particular weight for those who have watched her share her world with them for years.

Her son Callum, Angie's only child with George, put the diagnosis in context when he first shared it with the public.

"For as long as I can remember, she has lived her life rooted in health, fitness and wellbeing. She has always believed in taking care of the body, mind and soul. But as we all know, cancer doesn't discriminate. It doesn't care where you're from, how you live, or how healthy you try to be."

When the Diagnosis Came

The announcement came on 8 January, when Callum shared an emotional video with his followers, telling them that his mother had been diagnosed with advanced colon cancer.

He revealed that the diagnosis had been delayed, first by alternative treatments and then by a misdiagnosis of Lyme disease. By the time doctors identified the true cause, the illness had already spread to Angie's liver.

Callum, who set up a GoFundMe page to help fund specialist care, admitted in that video: "I'll be honest, I haven't cried in years but this has been an emotional rollercoaster I never expected to be on."

He had spent weeks deciding how to break the news, ultimately concluding that "when it comes to health, and when it comes to my mum, the only thing that really matters is honesty."

In the caption of that post, alongside his own words, he included a message from Angie herself. She was, she said, "ready."

Angie's niece, former "EastEnders" actress Samantha Janus, is among her wider family circle. But it is Callum who has remained her most constant and visible source of support throughout her treatment.

'You Can See Right Through My Hair': Angie Speaks Out

Since January, Angie has been posting her own updates directly from Switzerland, sharing videos as her treatment continues. In one recent clip, she appeared on camera wearing a white baseball cap, looking pale and visibly tired, with thinning hair visible at the sides of the brim.

She explained, with characteristic directness, exactly why the cap had become a fixture.

"I'm wearing my hat because I didn't the other day, and with the sun I came out in my face with the brown hormonal stuff, and I can't be doing with that," she told followers. "And you can see right through my hair because I've lost so much of it."

In a separate video, Angie addressed the red spots that had appeared on her face, telling followers they were not a sign of her illness worsening. They were a reaction to immunotherapy, a side effect of her treatment rather than a symptom of the condition itself.

Rather than dwelling on what those changes looked like, she offered a perspective that has stayed with followers since she first shared it, a way of looking at things that reframes the experience entirely:

"But I'm losing all the bad stuff."

She also shared a perspective that has resonated with many following her journey. Referencing a message she had seen, Angie explained that she had come to view the hair loss as part of letting go — shedding not just the physical effects of illness, but the weight of what had come before it.

In its place, she said, regrowth could be seen as something symbolic: a return to health, renewal, and a fresh start. It was an idea that had stayed with her.

'Still Beautiful': Fans Respond with Love

The comments beneath Angie's videos have been filled with warmth from followers moved by both the updates and the spirit in which she is sharing them.

"Such a cruel soul destroying disease," wrote one. "Still beautiful."

Another offered encouragement with a gentle nod to Angie's well-known surname, "The side effects will fade. Angie has the right surname. She is the 'best'".

A third, drawing on having watched others come through similar treatment, wrote, "All the effects of the treatment will go. I have seen people recover and look like themselves once again."

The warmth in those comments reflects something broader: a community of people who have followed Angie Best for years, and who are now sending it back to her without hesitation.

The woman who once stood in that sun-drenched photograph is now walking the streets of Switzerland in a baseball cap, sharing updates from the middle of her treatment in real time. She speaks openly about the changes, from the spots on her face to the loss of her hair, and about what those changes mean to her.

"New hair is new growth, new life, new health," as she put it herself.

It is a perspective that has resonated far beyond her own experience — one that takes on even greater meaning when seen alongside the images that have documented her journey over time.

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