‘I apologised profusely – but it was unforgiving’ The rise and fall and rise again of Janey Godley
A year ago, Janey Godley was the toast of Scotland – one of the nation’s best-loved comedians at the top of her game. But scandal hit when historic tweets were unearthed and she was branded racist. She contemplated suicide – and then, within weeks, was diagnosed with cancer. Now she’s back, in recovery and in front of audiences who still love her. She talks to our Writer at Large about her life-changing journey
JANEY Godley’s prodigious sense of humour stands by her like a watchdog. It guards against the memories of the last terrible year, and seldom fails her.
It is there as she talks about how close she came to killing herself when historic tweets were uncovered and she was branded a racist in front of the nation. It is there as she matterof-factly recounts being diagnosed with ovarian cancer – when she went from wanting to take her own life to fighting for her life in a single day.
But that sense of humour vanishes in the face of the kindness of one single stranger. All her protective jokes, all those self-deprecating gags, just disappear in an instant as she begins telling how a care assistant in a Glasgow hospital held her in the shower after her surgery – “when everything was taken away” – and Godley cried, naked, in the woman’s arms.
“It was after the hysterectomy. It was the most poignant moment of my life,” she says. Until this point in the conversation, Godley has been unfailingly upbeat despite reliving a year of public shaming, mental collapse and the prospect of her own death.
“The care assistant came in,” she begins, then – bang – in an instant, her watchdog leaves her. Her face crumples as she starts to cry, she bows her head and runs her hands through the close-cropped white hair that is a reminder of the chemo she’s just been through. “Honest to God, I can’t even,” she says, her voice thickening with tears, and she has to stop and pull herself together.
Godley tries to compose herself, inhales, and starts talking again. She recalls lying in bed surrounded by equipment and tubes, covered in drips and oxygen lines, a bag full of morphine attached to her, a catheter fitted. The care assistant arrived and helped Godley, slowly and painfully, undress and walk to the shower.
“She stood me in that shower and her kindness just broke me in two,” Godley says.