When Lisa Ray dreaded red carpet appearance after cancer diagnosis: 'Always felt self-conscious...'

Lisa Ray was diagnosed with cancer for the first time in June 2009. She relapsed again after 3 years of her recovery.

Actor Lisa Ray won her toughest battle against a rare type of cancer of the bone marrow, which is touted to be incurable. Talking about her first international red carpet event back in 2009 right after she announced her diagnosis, Lisa once revealed how much she dreaded the event, after the side effects of steroids. The actor turned 51 on Tuesday.

Lisa Ray turned 51 on Tuesday.

Lisa talked about her experience in her memoir Close To The Bone. It was released in 2019. She revealed she was 40 pounds heavier when about to attend the red carpet event in America.

An excerpt from the memoir read, as per CBC Books, “I always dreaded the red carpet. I had walked it at movie premieres in Toronto and L.A., events in Bombay, and I always felt self-conscious: you have to think about how to tilt your head and how to suck in your non-existent gut while photographers click away. You are expected to look flawless. Ambition and expectation wrap around your skin, hug your form. But in the fall of 2009, I do have a gut, and it is swinging beneath a sari-inspired dress in royal purple, specially made for my new body.”

"My costume designer friend Rashmi Varma dropped off the dress a couple of hours before the debut of my film Cooking with Stella at the Toronto International Film Festival. Then, one by one, I tried on pairs of heels from my closet. My feet are too bloated. That's what steroids do, and I have been knocking them back by the handful — four days on, four days off. They've also turned my face into a large, round moon. I call this feeling of an extra, elastic skin on top of my skin "my wet suit." I sit on the couch and watch as my belly inflates before my eyes. I study my fingers. They look like kabanosy, the sausages of my childhood. I marvel at my bloated thighs, saying to my dad, “Look at this. I'm expanding — like a cartoon character,” it further read.

Lisa is an Indo-Canadian actor. She was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in June 2009. Post 3 years of her recovery, she relapsed around the time of her wedding with Jason Dehni in 2012. She took months to battle the disease once again and came out even stronger.

Lisa and Jason have two daughters--Sufi and Soleil, born in 2018, via surrogacy. Lisa was recently seen attending the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre Gala event in Mumbai. She was last seen in Prime Video's Four More Shots Please Season 2.