Cancer campaigner Dame Deborah James has raised £1m for cancer research through sales of her clothing line with In The Style, she has revealed.
The 40-year-old, known online as Bowelbabe, shared a photo of her with the fashion company’s founder Adam Frisby and his partner Jamie Corbett, alongside a giant cheque.
She announced her collaboration with In The Style at the end of May, saying that the partnership had “honestly kept me going and taken me away from cancer”.
The collection features a variety of dresses, skirts, tops and more in vibrant prints and colours that represent British Summertime, which was one Dame Deborah’s key inspirations for the range.
She wrote on Instagram: “WOW!! ONE MILLION POUNDS. I am honestly so overwhelmed we, through @inthestyle raised over £1,000,000 for @bowelbabefund for @cr_uk! All from sales of the ITS x Dame Deborah James collection and ‘Rebellious Hope’ T-shirts that I designed with @inthestyle. (One million, that’s just crazy).
“I got a lovely little visit yesterday from the @inthestyle founder @fr15by and his partner @thejamiecorbett who brought this lovely cheque and we have had a little toast to celebrate it.”
She continued: “Rebellious Hope is what has got me through the last few years and it’s what is keeping me going now! Seeing all your messages, tags and support has just been the best and I am so grateful that we have been able to do this together! Thank you all.”
A post shared by Deborah James (@bowelbabe)
Dame Deborah has been keeping busy after she bid her online followers goodbye a month ago, revealing she was receiving at home hospice care for her stage four bowel cancer and did not know “how long she had left”.
Last weekend, she shared pictures of an evening at the opera with her husband Sebastien Bowen – five years after she visited the same venue when she was freshly diagnosed with cancer.
Dame Deborah has raised £6.7m for her “Bowelbabe” fund, which she launched with her May Instagram post that revealed her body had “stopped playing ball”.
She was given a damehood at home by Prince William in the days following, which she said was one of the most “surreal” experiences of her life.
Dame Deborah was diagnosed in December 2016 and rose to fame with her podcast You Me and the Big C, where she and fellow hosts Rachael Bland and Lauren Mahon documented their experiences of cancer.
Bland died in 2018 and has been replaced on the show by her husband Steve.
