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Weeks after delighting fans with an on-stage stint at the TV Week Logies, Kath and Kim star Magda Szubanski is set for another public appearance – one in which she is set to lay bare a “brutal” experience.
The beloved comedian – who announced in February 27 she was in remission from a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer – is set to appear at Sydney Opera House on October 4 to discuss her new memoir, I Can’t Tell You But I Will.
Magda took to Instagram on September 6 to make the reveal, declaring it was “exciting news”.
“I really look forward to seeing you. It’s been fun to be back out in the public again,” she told her 408,000 Instagram followers.
“I had such a fun time with Robert Irwin doing the Logies. That was a real treat. So I’m looking forward to being out and back in the public again, and hope that I’ll see you there.”
However, while news of Magda’s personal appearance will no doubt delight her army of followers, she is set to discuss a very difficult time at the event.
Magda said her memoir is about the “challenges and treasured moments” of caring for her mother Margaret as she was dying.
“It’s about the complexities of mother-daughter relationships. But I think anyone who has cared for an elderly parent (or any loved one for that matter) will relate,” the star shared in her new Instagram post.
“It’s simultaneously one of the most brutal, beautiful, privileged experiences of one’s life. It’s impossibly hard. It’s unbelievably rewarding.
“You feel like it will break you. But you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
Magda went on to say that “like life”, her book is full of “laughter and tears”, and she feels “excited to be launching it out into the world”.
“I hope people will find comfort and recognition in its pages,” she wrote.
Magda has previously hinted at the struggle she faced while coping with the knowledge of her mother’s impending passing – all while campaigning for same sex marriage – in a 2018 interview with Andrew Denton.
“It’s been the toughest year of my life without question,” she told the interviewer at the time. Mostly because of mum. But the marriage equality stuff was something I was proud to do.”
Telling of the emotional toll those months had taken, she said it was “probably why I’m so tired”.
“It took seven days for Mum to die. It was brutal. It’s actually f***ing traumatic, watching someone die. You’re not normal after,” the star added.
Sadly, Magda would end up going through a health ordeal of her own, after she was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma, a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer, in May 2025.
A breast screening had flagged she had swollen lymph nodes which led to further tests being done on the then 64-year-old.
The star said her subsequent journey was “tough” but she had “never felt more held by the people” around her.
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