Broadcaster Lauren Laverne has revealed she has been diagnosed with smouldering myeloma, an asymptomatic blood and bone marrow disorder that can, in some cases, progress into blood cancer. The 48-year-old presenter of BBC's The One Show, Desert Island Discs and 6 Music said she currently feels well and requires no treatment, though the diagnosis comes less than two years after she was treated for an earlier, unspecified cancer, from which she was given the all-clear in November 2024.

Laverne explained that smouldering myeloma has no symptoms and does not need immediate treatment, but is a chronic condition with no cure that will require ongoing monitoring through blood tests, MRIs and bone marrow biopsies, and leaves her immune system slightly compromised. She said the condition was unrelated to her previous illness and that her risk of it developing into active myeloma was low, crediting her GP for catching the issue early after investigating her persistently low iron levels; she urged others to be similarly proactive about their health. She is taking a short holiday before returning to work as normal.