6806
Lauren Mahon is a broadcaster, presenter, writer and charity campaigner, best known for working alongside the late Deborah James – known as BowelBabe – on the You Me & The Big C podcast.
Whether you knew her as the feisty, relatable girl inexplicably unlucky in love on Channel 4’s First Dates Hotel, or as one-third of the trio kicking cancer’s arse on the BBC Podcast, one thing is for certain: influencer and charity campaigner Lauren Mahon is an inspiration and a force to be reckoned with.
How do you begin to describe the achievements of a self-made female boss who took a devastating cancer diagnosis and:
– Turned it into an online platform with a following of hundreds of thousands;
– Started a fundraising community that raises significant amounts of money that goes directly to help fellow cancer sufferers;
– Created a successful merchandise company, and
– Helped make cancer a subject ripe for discussion.
Contact Great British Speakers today to book Breast Cancer Survivor, speaker and Writer Lauren Mahon for your next event.
Since her breast cancer diagnosis in 2016, Lauren Mahon has achieved so much. Her award-winning number one BBC5 Live Podcast You, Me & The Big C alongside Deborah James and Rachael Bland won Gold for Best New Show at the 2018 Gold Aria Awards and Best Podcast at the BBC Music and Radio Awards. At the end of 2022, the Institute of Cancer Research London awarded Lauren (and posthumously her two co-hosts) with an honorary doctorate in medical science to recognise their contribution in raising awareness of living with cancer and the importance of proper cancer research.
Lauren was very close friends with her podcast co-hosts and appeared in the documentary, Dame Deborah James: The Last Dance, which aired in 2022 after the death of Dame Deborah James (BowelBabe). Being the only original podcaster left, Lauren aims to make sure Deborah’s work doesn’t stop because of her passing.
“Having relationships with people with cancer is really hard because you lose people. There are people and there’s Deborah, and I can’t help but be incredibly grateful that I had her at all. I just loved her so much. We need to keep raising money because we can’t lose any more Debs.”
Lauren appeared on BBC Breakfast (49:07-53:43) on 30th January 2023 to announce the podcast would be coming to an end, with a one-off, live audience special, filmed alongside Rachael’s widower Steve. Together, the two of them interviewed family members – including Deborah’s siblings – medical professionals, and members of the cancer community on their journey with the illness, and to recognise how the podcast has changed the national conversation around cancer.
She has masterminded the design and distribution of a range of slogan t-shirts, aka. TIT-TEES, raising over £60,000 for her chosen charities, culminating in a landmark collaboration with high-street store Miss Selfridge. Her experience also led her to start up her own charity GIRLvsCANCER, which has since grown into an established community helping support those touched by cancer.
Lauren won the Inspirational Founder of the Year award at the Stylist LIVE Retail Awards, the Triumph Award at the Inaugural Stylist Remarkable Women Awards in 2019 and a prestigious Webby Award in New York, an award voted for by the public.
Lauren has featured on a number of television shows including BBC Breakfast, Stand Up To Cancer, The One Show, BBC London and talkRADIO, talking to millions of people about her life experiences; from cancer to dating, to fashion and beauty and everything in between. In 2018, she co-presented the radio show Up All Night, and can be heard as a regular contributor on The Sarah Brett Show on BBC 5Live.
She has worked alongside high-profile clients including Bloom & Wild, Campo Viejo, Debenhams, Flash Pack, Olympus, Pai Skincare, Pantene, Pretty Little Things, Warehouse, and Wayfair.
Alongside her podcast co-hosts (both sadly no longer with us), Lauren has spoken at events for BAFTA, Estee Lauder and at Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place Festival, and has been featured in The Sun, The Guardian and the Independent, plus Red, Glamour, Elle, Grazia and Look magazines, all wanting to tell their readers about the inspirational young women who have turned a devastating diagnosis into a positive force for change. As well as being part of the Cancer podcast, she created her own hilarious blog titled ‘Girl vs Cancer’, where she writes candidly and honestly about her cancer. In 2020, she announced her blog was being made into an upcoming TV Series about surviving breast cancer.
As well as her cancer story, Lauren is passionate about discussing other female health problems such as endometriosis – which she struggled through in her earlier years – to her cancer treatment putting her into a menopause in her thirties. “Nobody talks about the menopause – about the way it has the capacity to morph you into a different person.”
She has spoken at The Podcast Show, appeared on the virtual Q&A ‘Chemo Brain: Cancer & Mental Health’ for Youth Cancer Europe, and has appeared on a number of podcasts including Power Hour, Katie Piper’s Extraordinary People, Happiful and Together Against Breast Cancer.
– Breast Cancer
– Bowel Cancer and BowelBabe (the late Deborah James)
– Menopause
– Entrepreneurship
– Mental Health and Wellbeing
– Grief
Lauren is charismatic, knowledgeable, funny, sympathetic and approachable; she is a real girl-next-door making a huge difference. She is empowering and inspires her audience through public speaking, radio and TV work, article writing and event hosting.
Lauren is a brilliant woman and her Girl vs Cancer movement has brought together a community of people seeking connection with like-minded souls. We are delighted to be working on bringing Lauren’s unique brand of humour and incredible story to the screen.
Louise Sutton, Lime’s Head of Drama and Young Adults