Shona McGarry Reveals Cervical Cancer Ended Her Engagement to James Morrison on I'm a Celebrity

When Shona Patricia McGarry stepped onto the I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! stage in Springbrook, Queensland in November 2023, viewers expected laughs, jungle trials, and maybe a little drama. What they got was raw, heartbreaking truth — and a moment that sent shockwaves through cancer awareness communities. At 9:15 PM GMT on November 26, during the twelfth episode of the show’s twenty-third series, McGarry, 38, broke down in tears while speaking with fellow contestant Owen Warner, revealing that her 2011 engagement to James Morrison Aubert collapsed not over infidelity or growing apart — but because of cervical cancer.

The Diagnosis That Broke Them

It was September 2011. McGarry, then 26, had just gotten engaged to Morrison, a rising star with his debut album Undiscovered dominating the charts. They’d been dating six months. He proposed in June. By September, she was sitting in a clinic at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, Scotland, hearing the words no one ever expects: stage IB1 cervical cancer.

"I was terrified," McGarry told Warner, her voice cracking. "I couldn’t be the fiancée he needed. He tried. God love him. But I pushed him away for two years until he finally ended it in August 2013." Morrison, then 27, didn’t walk away lightly. According to his November 28, 2023, statement to The Sun, he visited her 37 times during her eight-month hospital stay — from chemotherapy at University College Hospital London to her radical hysterectomy in January 2012. "I supported her through it all," he said. "But the emotional toll… it fractured us beyond repair." The treatment cost £28,500 — fully covered by National Health Service Scotland. Her five-year survival rate? 63 percent. She made it. But the relationship didn’t.

What Happened After the Surgery

McGarry’s life after treatment wasn’t quiet. In August 2012, she debuted her stand-up show Cancer is Cancelled at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, performing to 1,842 people across 23 shows. She turned pain into punchlines — a coping mechanism that would later fuel her 2019 memoir, Sick Jokes, published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

But she never named Morrison in the book. "I didn’t want to drag him into the spotlight," she later told Metro. "He was kind. He showed up. But I was broken. And I didn’t know how to let him in." Meanwhile, Morrison released his second album, The Awakening, in September 2011 — it debuted at number two in the UK with 58,432 first-week sales. He married fashion designer Jessica Thorne in May 2014. He’s since released six albums under Polydor Records, a Universal Music Group label.

The Public Reaction: A Surge in Awareness

When McGarry’s revelation aired, the internet didn’t just react — it mobilized. Within 24 hours, her Instagram followers jumped by 147,832, from 284,501 to 432,333. Spotify saw a 22% spike in streams for Morrison’s 2011 hit Slave to the Music, with over 1.8 million plays between November 27 and December 3.

But the most powerful ripple came from Cancer Research UK. On November 27, 2023 — the day after the episode aired — their website saw 12,450 unique visitors to their cervical screening information page. That’s a 40% surge over their monthly average of 8,890.

"This is exactly what public health messaging hopes for," said Dr. Eleanor Hargreaves, a gynecological oncologist not involved in the case. "When someone with a platform shares their story — especially about a preventable cancer — it doesn’t just humanize the data. It saves lives."

Where They Are Now

McGarry, still performing with Avalon Television Ltd, finished seventh in I'm a Celebrity’s 2023 season after 19 trials over 21 days. She’s since spoken publicly about survivor’s guilt and the stigma around discussing reproductive health. "I didn’t lose my womb," she said in a December interview with The Guardian. "I lost my sense of being desirable. That’s the silence no one talks about." Morrison, now 40, released his sixth album, You're Stronger Than You Know, in March 2024. He has not publicly commented further on the 2023 revelations.

Why This Matters

Cervical cancer is one of the most preventable cancers — thanks to regular screenings and the HPV vaccine. Yet, in the UK, over 3,000 women are diagnosed annually. Many still don’t know the symptoms: irregular bleeding, pelvic pain, pain during sex. McGarry’s story isn’t just about a broken engagement. It’s about a system that tells women to "just wait and see" — until it’s too late.

Her admission didn’t spark a reunion. Didn’t launch a podcast. Didn’t even lead to a new book. But it did something rarer: it made a nation pause. And that pause? That’s where change begins.