On a golden autumn morning in March this year, Melissa King was bursting with excitement, sharing all the colour and grandeur of Melbourne’s International Flower & Garden Show with the audience of Seven’s Sunrise, when she began to feel an uncomfortable sensation spreading across her face.
Live on breakfast television, with the eyes of the nation upon her, the bubbly Better Homes and Gardens presenter’s worst fears were realised, as her face went into an uncontrollable spasm.
“It’s live television, I was hyped up, lots of adrenalin, the camera went on and I said, ‘Hi guys, we’re at the Flower & Garden Show …’ and suddenly it was like someone had placed a fishing hook in the corner of my lip and eye, and they were pulling hard,” she tells The Weekly. “I could feel the stretching and tightening as the right side of my face contorted and I knew everyone watching at home could see it too.”
Thinking on her feet, Melissa did her best to subtly cover her face with her hand, using her strawberry blonde hair to disguise the spasm until it passed, but the very public episode has prompted the much-loved horticulturalist to open up about the very private health battle she’s faced for the past five years, since being diagnosed with a benign tumour on the lining of her brain. “That