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I'm Jamie East and this is why I had to make my new podcast through my chronic myeloid leukaemia journey

Jamie East speaks about his very personal new podcast.

Jamie East sat smiling in a leopard print shirt and hat.

Natasha Pszenicki

Published: Thursday, 23 July 2026 at 7:00 am

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Having been a podcaster for well over a decade and a producer/broadcaster/TV presenter for another decade before that, the number one piece of advice I have both given and received has always been “Be authentic. You have to either come from a place of genuine curiosity or relative authority. It’s not enough to just be ‘good’ at presenting anymore. Give people a reason to want to engage with you.”

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It’s incredibly disheartening advice. Presenting is a hell of a lot of fun and, quite frankly, ridiculous pay for low hours. I grew up in an era of presenters where just being professional, funny, edgy or charming was enough to carve out a huge career on radio or TV. Those days ended around the same time I got into the game, hence my annoyingly short stint in front of the camera. Well, that and the fact I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. I never really got to grips with it.

It wasn’t until discovering audio as a medium (through my radio shows on Virgin and Talk Radio) that I felt at home. The relationship a broadcaster has with listeners is unique and, in my view, unbeatable. Yet, despite loving it and being bloody good at it, I struggled to fit into a schedule. I have no huge political leanings, I actively repel against any sport and my life had always been charmed and uneventful. My only specialist subject was television and celebrity gossip (I created the early noughties online gossip juggernaut Holy Moly), neither of which really enticed a commission editor or radio scheduler.

So while I was able to carve a great career out as a producer, and achieve a respectable level of success talking about my passions (Namely Game of Thrones and any decent box set on earth), a true connection eluded me. I found myself in the weird position of being able to make number 1 podcasts, but felt very much at arm's length from them all. If only, I often thought wistfully, i had something truly honest to think about. Something actually real to say. My professional life was one of gobby opinions and contrary headlines. I wish…

Jamie East sat smiling in a leopard print shirt and hat.

Jamie East, Head of Podcasts, photography Natasha Pszenicki Natasha Pszenicki

Well, one thing I most definitely didn’t wish for, was cancer. Yet much like the time I asked Santa for a drum kit and got a trumpet instead, sometimes thems the breaks.

in June last year, on a blazing hot Monday morning, just as i was packing for Glastonbury, I got a call from doctor I’d seen the previous Friday, telling me “Your bloods are all over the shop, I think you’ve got Leukaemia”. I’d only gone in with a sore throat.

What followed was, frankly, absolute f****ng chaos. No Glastonbury, no leaving the house, no anything really – apart from abject terror, buckets of tears, chemotherapy, bone marrow biopsies, a steep learning curve about both blood and cancer – and a lot of internal soul-searching.

My workplace were incredibly understanding and once the initial hell had subsided, I found myself stuck at home trying to make sense of it all.

My safe space at home is my garden recording studio (built through necessity thanks to the lockdown we all went through a few years previous). So finding myself alone in there in between trips to the hospital, dealing with the effects of the myriad of potent medication I was on, I wanted to try and make sure I never forgot this insane period. At the time, I didn’t even know if I’d see Christmas, so my head was in pieces.

Some people journal, others do therapy. I’m an alcoholic in active recovery, so even my weekly AA meetings were confined to zoom. I didn’t really have anywhere to turn except my microphone. That sounds incredibly glib I know, and I swear on my poison-blooded life, I had no motive other than indexing it and getting things straight in my mind.

There was so much to cover. The shock of the diagnosis, the speed at which your life and the lives of those close to you, is upended in a heartbeat. Then there’s the admin, the appointments, the sheer amount of data (“My urea levels are high you say? Excuse me, what?”) and the overwhelming desire to either walk off into the ocean or take myself to bed for a year.

Saying all this out loud was a mental lifesaver. It calmed me, prioritised concerns and allowed my brain to offload and make space for getting better. This is the power of audio as a medium combined with the therapeutic beauty of talking.

As a bit of an audio nerd, I also have a habit of recording most things. I recorded the initial phone call with my consultant. I went to Glasgow to meet some brilliant researchers and recorded all those chats. I have a mind like a sieve and forget most conversations I have – these were too important for that to happen.

FINAL ARTWORK

As the fabled 1-year anniversary loomed (spoiler alert, the medication seems to be holding the worst at bay for now), I revisited these recordings, out of curiosity and a way of reminding myself of how far I've come. It hit me hard. It was a tough listen. I barely recognised my voice. I sounded broken and terrified. But most of all, it was the most genuine I'd ever heard myself. It was brutally, often uncomfortably honest. I’d finally, reluctantly found my niche; talking about myself (a dream come true!) and being diagnosed with cancer.

Turning these audio journals into a short podcast series has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

I value my work highly and am hugely proud of everything I’ve achieved over the last 25+ years in the media – but seeing how people have responded to Bad Blood has blown me away. The theme is both deeply personal, yet completely universal. Whether we care to admit it or not, we will all at some point receive one of those terrifying phone calls in some shape or another.

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It is unlikely to be my exact strain of leukaemia (CML, thanks for asking) or even cancer at all, but the road for all of us has the same destination. I was terrified of it, leg-shakingly, underwear-changing terrified. I’m not anymore. I’ve talked myself through it, people have listened and I’m ready to face whatever journey I'm now on.

I’ll make plenty of other podcasts and I’d wager most of them will be far more “successful” than this one. But after spending 25 years trying to find my voice, I know that I’ve finally found it.

Bad Blood: The Diary of a Cancer is available to listen to now.

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Jamie East

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