KAT STEWART ‘Mum’s still always with me.’
In 2015, Kat Stewart should have been on top of the world. She was in the first flush of pregnancy with a much longed-for second child, a daughter she would call Gigi. Her marriage to fellow actor David Whiteley was going from strength to strength, the pair having successfully navigated their way from colleagues to friends to blissful lovers. And her career was still on an upward trajectory, with a comeback seventh season of Offspring soon to be announced, and several other projects in the works.
Yet behind closed doors she was in the midst of unthinkable heartbreak. Five days after she’d learnt she was pregnant, her mother Kitty had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer – a disease that would claim her life four-and-a-half months later. Not only that, but David’s mother, Shirley, who had herself been battling cancer, would also lose her fight during this time.
There were endless hospital and hospice visits and many shed tears, all of which could have taken the gloss from her happiness. But Kat has never operated in that way. Instead, she embraced the positive, tapping into what we’ll learn during our time together is a glass half-full attitude to life.
“The great thing was that I had such a strong bond with Mum and she was thrilled,” she says with a genuine smile. “Mum knew that Gigi was a little girl – she actually named her.
