The Traitors' Livi opens up about losing her eye to cancer as a child
3 January 2025, 14:15 | Updated: 3 January 2025, 14:19
The Traitors' Livi Deane has detailed her battle with eye cancer.
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Olivia Deane, known as 'Livi', is a contestant on this year's The Traitors.
The Traitors season 3 kicked on New Year's Day with 25 - who soon became 22 - strangers heading to Ardross Castle in the hopes of winning a huge cash prize.
One thing the show does brilliantly is bring people from all walks of life together and as the show goes on, they are all given the opportunity to share their story - and Livi has quite the story to tell.
- Read more: Where do the Traitors contestants sleep?
What happened to The Traitors' Livi's eye?
Ahead of the show, the now 26 year old spoke to the Telegraph about her health battle that started at just 12 years old. "My vision was funny. I said, 'so maybe I needed glasses too'," Livi said about why she eventually went to the opticians after years of distorted vision.
She explained: "Ironically, there was a problem with my eyes, though I’d never clocked that things weren’t totally normal. For as long as I could remember there was this big black 'floater' in my vision in my right eye. Because it had always been there, I’d thought that other people must have one as well."
The optician found a mass in her eye which turned out to be retinoblastoma and she was sent to Great Ormond Street to undergo chemotherapy immediately.
"To this day, I’m the oldest person ever to be diagnosed with retinoblastoma in Britain, a form of cancer that’s usually found in children under four – so in reality, no one knew what was going to happen," she said.
"Specsavers saved my life. I know now, had I not gone for that checkup I would have died."
Livi said the "worst thing" about chemotherapy was losing her hair, she said: "I knew it was going to happen. It came out of my short brown bob in clumps, when I brushed or washed it. The kids at school were horrible, calling me a boy and making fun of my bald patches.
"I was gifted a beautiful wig from the Little Princess Trust that saved my self-esteem, and that my mum could never have afforded herself."
Tragically the chemotherapy wasn't working for her so she began receiving it intravenously through a transfusion into her groin while under general anaesthetic. She eventually went into remission but sadly relapsed and had to have her eye removed.
Talking about the anxieties of the removal, Livi recalled thinking: "I was going to be disfigured, I thought, with a horrible, scary crater in my face."
Unfortunately the removal of her eye didn't rid her of the cancer completely and she had to undergo yet another round of chemo. The Traitors contestant described it as a miracle that she survived, adding that her mum was her "guiding light" through it all.
Livi revealed: "The first thing my mum said when I woke up [from the surgery] was that I looked beautiful. She was my guiding light through all of this."
"I never got to be a normal teenager, but my illness taught me that there is more to life than the little inconveniences and dramas we all get so wrapped up in," she added.
Livi said she feels more herself when she isn't wearing her prosthetic eye and says people think she has a "lazy eye" when she wears it.
After sharing her story online a few years back, the 26 year old was discovered by acid attack survivor, presenter and model Katie Piper in 2022.
Katie helped get her signed to a modelling agency and since then, she has appeared in Vogue magazine without her prosthetic. Livi has even released her own book 'My New Normal: Learning to Celebrate What's Different about You'.
Read more about The Traitors here:
- The Traitors season 3 contestants: Meet the 2025 cast
- How Much Did Harry Clark Win On The Traitors?
- The Traitors' Claudia Winkleman reveals huge change for season 3
- Where is The Traitors castle? The picturesque Scottish filming location revealed
- Where do the Traitors contestants sleep?
