Michelle Heaton sobs on TV as she reveals her cancer fears

Tearful ... Michelle Heaton sobs as she reveals her cancer fears

MICHELLE Heaton broke down in tears on television, as she revealed her cancer fears for her and her daughter.

The former pop star discovered she has an 80 per cent chance of developing breast cancer and a 30 per cent chance of developing ovarian cancer, after being diagnosed with a mutated gene called BRCA2.

And speaking to Lorraine Kelly on ITV1 this morning, the 33-year-old wept as she admitted her nine-month-old baby daughter Faith has a 50 per cent chance of inheriting the same mutated gene.

'The guilt' ... Michelle Heaton discusses passing the cancer gene on to baby daughter Faith

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“A major part for me finding out that I had the gene was the guilt of possibly passing it on to Faith,” said the former Liberty X singer.

“She now has a 50 per cent chance of inheriting the gene from me, so I believe when she's 18 she will be legal to be genetically tested.”

In the future, Michelle revealed she may have to undergo surgery to have a double mastectomy and her ovaries removed.

“What's difficult is timing it right,” she said.

“The double mastectomy not so much because obviously that's not going to affect me having children and hormonally. But getting my ovaries removed is going to onset menopause and I won't be allowed to have children anymore.”

Michelle revealed the news had been hard on her and her husband, businessman Hugh Hanley. But she said she would want him to find someone else, if the worst were to happen.

“It's really difficult to say how you feel when you get told something like that because when you look at your husband and he's getting clearly upset, and then you look at your little baby who's laughing and giggling and she's not aware of anything, you just feel things crumbling around you.

Putting a brave face on ... Michelle poses outside the ITV studios

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“'If I go, will he find somebody else? And I know it's an awful thing to think, but the last thing that you want to do is have your little baby without a mum.

“So I almost give my husband permission to find somebody else if anything ever happens to me because I'd want her to have a mum.”