Angie Kent gives emotional update on her father’s cancer battle, her career and why ‘being a Barbie didn’t sit well with me’

She is known for her bubbly personality but former Bachelorette star Angie Kent has been facing a private family health battle.

‘I thought I wasn’t dateable.’ Angie Kent has reflected on her time as The Bachelorette in a new interview with Stellar. Picture: Simon Upton for Stellar

Whether it’s trying to find love, surviving the jungle, dancing her heart out or being filmed watching television, Angie Kent has built a reputation on being the girl with a big laugh and a big heart.

But having kickstarted an award-winning TV career after finding fame on Gogglebox Australia in 2015, the alum of The Bachelorette Australia, I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! and Dancing With The Stars admits she took her happy life for granted.

Things came crashing down in 2020, when she travelled home to Queensland from Sydney during a break in the pandemic, only to learn that her parents had been keeping a secret. Kent’s father Mark, now 63, had been diagnosed with blood cancer – the disease that had claimed her grandfather’s life when she was just 11.

“Mum and Dad had known for a while but they only told me when I got home because they know how emotional I am,” Kent tells Stellar.

‘Like a champion!’ Mark Kent and his daughter, Angie Kent. Picture: Simon Upton for Stellar

The ensuing four years have been understandably harrowing, as Kent watched her father battle Myelodysplastic syndrome, an uncommon blood cancer that required gruelling chemotherapy followed by an agonising wait for a bone-marrow transplant.

Kent, who was determined to be by his side, ended up moving into the Leukaemia Foundation’s accommodation centre in Brisbane with her mother to ensure she could be closer to him.

“Seeing somebody that you’ve always seen as strong go through that was so hard,” she says. “He was like a skeleton and his hair started falling out in clumps, so he shaved it all off. Mentally he just didn’t handle it. He hated being in bed 24/7 and got really cranky. Then the pain got so bad he couldn’t really talk for a while and just shut down. Even though you want to think positively, you live every day waiting for a call.”

Looking back, the 34-year-old says it was probably more important that she was there to support her mum Jane, 60, who had to leave her younger brother Josh, 29 – who is on the autism spectrum – at home on the Sunshine Coast, where he was cared for by a friend.

“My mum is a warrior,” Kent says.

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“I truly don’t know how she does all the things she does. But being able to live in the Foundation’s apartment for three months, right near the hospital, meant we could take turns being there for Dad.”

In a bid to save Mark’s life, he was put on a list to find a bone-marrow transplant, and last October his team at the Royal Brisbane Hospital found a match. After undergoing a stem cell transplant, he is now recovering well.

“He is like a cockroach – truly, the way he’s bounced back from the bone marrow transplant has blown everyone away,” Kent reveals.

“He’s an old-school Aussie so he has struggled with not being able to go back to work yet, but he has bounced back like a champion.”

Kent is speaking with Stellar at the beginning of Blood Cancer Month. Given her personal connection to the disease, she’s eager to raise awareness of the condition, which is the third most diagnosed form of cancer in Australia.

Every day, 53 people are diagnosed and it is on the rise, with the incidence of blood cancer increasing 47 per cent over the past decade. It is also the second highest cause of cancer-related deaths, which is why the Leukaemia Foundation focuses on getting quick diagnosis and care in regional and linguistically diverse communities.

Picture: Simon Upton for Stellar

“We’ve come so far since my pa was diagnosed with blood cancer and died within a few weeks back when I was 11,” observes Kent, who in March raised nearly $12,000 for the Leukaemia Foundation when she shaved, cut and coloured her hair as part of the World’s Greatest Shave.

A stalwart of reality TV, Kent is currently living in Sydney while she films the third series of Nine Network decluttering show Space Invaders. Despite her apparent ease on the small screen, she freely admits to having had “a lot of therapy” after appearing on season five of The Bachelorette Australia in 2019, and now identifies as pansexual. Kent says she dates women and queer people.

“Feeling like I had to be a Barbie doll [on that show] didn’t sit well with me,” she says.

“I look back and think, who was that tiny little human who tried to be perfect … when you’re not perfect?

“But I did show a side I love, which is that women can be a bit grubby and funny and stick up for themselves and still be somebody who is dateable.”

‘I try not to take myself so frickin’ seriously!’ Picture: Paul Harris

Kent says the show highlighted the gender roles people can fall into, and that in her previous relationships with men, she had always felt something was missing.

“I always blamed myself. I thought I needed more therapy or that I wasn’t dateable,” she explains.

“I’m a person who falls in love with the soul, not the way someone looks or identifies. So when I was doing Dancing With The Stars: All Stars in 2022, I decided to date men, women, trans, non-binary – whoever. Then I got into my first queer relationship and I was like ‘OK, this is what I’ve been missing.’ That was almost three years ago and I’ve not dated men since.”

Currently single, Kent says she doesn’t put much effort into dating: “It doesn’t really frighten me being alone. I don’t think it’s my goal in life to find my person.”

Instead she relishes being a carer – which has included looking after her friend Tom Hancock, who lived with Down syndrome before his death last year – and expanding her TV career beyond the reality shows she’s become known for, including the Logie-winning Gogglebox. As she says, fans got to know her being “my little feral self. People either find me really endearing or they’re like: ‘cringe’,” she tells Stellar, smiling.

“Either way, it’s worked so long as you’re laughing. You can laugh at me or with me – either way, it’s fine.”

As well as watching her father’s struggles over the past few years, Kent has also battled her own health problems – including endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). As a result, she says she has learnt to be more accepting of life’s travails.

“I try not to take myself so frickin’ seriously because the world is going to throw some absolutely wild things at you,” she says. “You’ve got to surrender, stop trying to understand everything and just be present.”

During Blood Cancer Month, the Leukaemia Foundation encourages anyone who has been impacted or wants to learn more to visit bloodcancer.org.au. For more from Stellar and Something To Talk About, click here.