Wayne Sleep has shared the news that he has been undergoing treatment for cancer since the summer.
The 78-year-old dancer - who famously performed a surprise, secret ballet dance duet with Princess Diana at the Royal Opera House - revealed his news in a post on Instagram.
He told fans he is "undergoing treatment for cancer", but reassured them that he is "in good spirits and feeling positive about the future".
Wayne wrote: "A few people have commented that I haven't been looking quite my usual self recently, so I thought I would share an update. Since the summer, I have been undergoing treatment for cancer.
"I'm pleased to say that the treatment appears to be working, and I am on the mend thanks to all at the Royal Marsden and am looking forward to getting back to full strength.
"I'm in good spirits and feeling positive about the future. Thank you to everyone for their kindness and concern."
The post was accompanied by a new photograph of the star wearing a jacket and a beanie at Kew Gardens.
The announcement comes 11 years after Wayne received a prostate cancer diagnosis. Speaking to the Mirror in 2016, he said his PSA levels had first been raised in 2010. Further tests followed, and an MRI and biopsy in July 2015 led to his prostate cancer diagnosis.
He opted for brachytherapy treatment, which the NHS describes as a treatment in which tiny radioactive pellets are placed in the prostate to kill cancer cells.
Wayne rose to fame as a dancer with the Royal Ballet, later establishing himself as a director, choreographer and actor. He also enjoyed success in musical theatre, appearing in productions including Cats and Cabaret, before making a number of appearances on reality television.
He finished fourth on the ITV reality show I’m A Celebrity… in 2003 and appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2018, finishing fifth.
Princess Diana's surprise dance
Princess Diana pulled off a surprise performance at London's Royal Opera House back in December 1985 - something that went down in history.
The annual show, Friends of Covent Garden, traditionally features a special appearance from a celebrity guest. In this case, it was Diana - unbeknownst to the then-Prince Charles.
The room fell silent when she walked across the stage with famed British dancer Wayne, who performed for some years with the Royal Ballet.
Wayne became Diana's teacher after she persuaded him to give her clandestine lessons so she could slip on stage during a Royal Ballet gala event and surprise her husband.
'This isn't going to work; it'll be hysterically funny'
"I walked in and I looked up at this towering sort of goddess above me and I thought: 'This isn't going to work; it'll be hysterically funny,'" Wayne, who was nine inches shorter than the royal, told HELLO!.
"Then I said: 'You know, I've been up very late last night. Do you mind if I sit down?' And she said: 'No, not at all, you naughty boy.' From that moment, we started giggling and laughing."
"We had the same schoolboy humour," he added. "I was her sort-of jester, in a way, but we did get on incredibly well. We had something that clicked. She had natural style. She could do the high kick, she could do a pirouette and she had lovely swinging hips.
"She had that thing called charisma. She was charismatic and even when she spoke with that very quiet voice, it was something that pulled you in and you just wanted to embrace her all the time."
Nobody was allowed in the studio for the pair's top-secret rehearsals and when Diana slipped out of the royal box to join Wayne on stage for their performance to Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl – Diana's choice of music – the audience was stunned.
"They gasped; they were frozen," explained Wayne. "It took a while for them to actually believe it was really her."
The secret meetings
Asked how they managed to keep their rehearsals a secret, Wayne revealed: "She would meet me somewhere and then we would slip into another part of the house. I would rehearse in the studio right down here in Chiswick then we would rehearse at my studio. We'd sometimes rehearse up where she was - so nobody ever got to know.
"But mind you a lot of it was done on the phone. I was on tour with my own company - doing eight shows a week and she'd be off somewhere like Australia – not sure where she was going. She had a job to do and so we had to do a lot of it over the phone."
