Peter Overton’s cancer scare left wife Jess Rowe ‘sick to her stomach’

News presenter Peter Overton has opened up on the terrifying moment doctors told him he could be facing a battle with cancer, while his wife Jess Rowe says it left her “sick to her stomach”.

In a tell-all interview with Stellar magazine, Channel Nine’s Overton, 52, and his Studio 10 star wife revealed their fears for his health, and how a few simple words turned their world upside down.

Overton scheduled an appointment with his GP in September last year after feeling “abysmally” rundown, and noticing a lump on his body that he had assumed was an ingrown hair.

It’s then that his doctor told him he could have lymphoma, cancer of the blood.

“I didn’t sleep very well… I was thinking worst-case scenario,’ he told the magazine. “I had never been in that situation myself. I have reported on it. I have sat in front of families with kids dying.”

Fearing the worst, he shared his news with his wife, 47, but they attempted to keep it hidden from their children Allegra, 11, and Giselle, eight. Admitting she attempted to keep a brave face on, Rowe told the publication that inside: “I was sick to my stomach.”

Overton went on to tell Nine News director Simon Hobbs, who spoke of his shock after hearing the news. While most of his colleagues were kept in the dark, Today Show star Georgie Gardner found out – and it left her “sick to her core”.

The mystery illness turned out to be a “particularly vicious virus” in the end, and Overton expressed his relief at the news – after reporting on several heartbreaking stories of cancer throughout his TV career.

It’s not the first time Overton has faced a serious health scare, and in 2015 he shared a photo from hospital with Rowe, after undergoing spinal surgery for a ruptured disc.

My darling wife @JessRowe a delight 2 see after emerging from spinal surgery. & Tks my @9NewsSyd mates 4 fab support pic.twitter.com/VwkvqHsZvq

— Peter Overton (@PeterOverton) March 23, 2015

Meanwhile, Rowe recently made the shock decision to quit Studio 10 to spend more time with her family.

Read more: ‘My family need me’: Jessica Rowe steps down from ‘Studio 10’

“I’ve decided to leave Studio 10 …it’s been a very hard thing for me to do but it’s because my family need me,” she said through tears at the time. 

“I want to be a more present mother for my girls, Allegra and Giselle. They need their mum. I want to be there in the mornings for them, to take them to school … It is something that I need to do, it is as simple as that.”

Rowe went on to say, she had spoken a lot about the decision with her husband, who later spoke out himself to support her decision.

“Peter and I have spoken a lot about this over the past six months and it has weighed on me because this is the best job that I have ever had on television. It is family. It is a job that has allowed me to find my voice and my courage again and I will never forget that. When I told Paul Anderson, the CEO, of my decision earlier this week, he was incredibly supportive and understood my reasons with family and the network has been nothing but supportive and said any time I’m welcome back,” she said. 

Have you faced a scare like Peter Overton? How did you react to the news?