“Industry”’s Marisa Abela Talks Body Image Struggles After Thyroid Cancer: ‘I’m Still Slightly Vain and I Want to Look Good'
- - “Industry”’s Marisa Abela Talks Body Image Struggles After Thyroid Cancer: ‘I’m Still Slightly Vain and I Want to Look Good'
Vanessa EtienneJanuary 14, 2026 at 11:09 PM
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Marisa Abela -
Marisa Abela reflected on how her relationship with her body changed after being diagnosed with thyroid cancer at age 23
The 29-year-old actress said she wished she was more grateful for her body but she’s “still slightly vain”
She revealed she still struggles because the disease has now made it “harder to maintain a healthy physique”
Marisa Abela is sharing how her cancer journey has impacted her body image.
On Wednesday, Jan. 14, the actress — best known for starring in HBO’s Industry — appeared on an episode of the How To Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast and opened up about being diagnosed with thyroid cancer at age 23.
Now 29, Abela said that she hoped to be a changed woman after battling cancer and that it would influence how she felt about her body. But she admitted that she’s “still slightly vain.”
“Not that I have a particularly terrible relationship with my body or anything, but I'm hard on myself, especially as an actor I have to see myself all the time,” she explained. “My number one thing now is that I’m healthy and when I think about food it's about healthy choices, not just skinny choices for once. But it hasn't quite done enough in the sense that of course I'm still slightly vain and I want to look good.”
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“It's a difficult one because the thyroid is one of the hormones you need for your metabolism to be working, so it's been a lot more difficult for me since the illness, and the aftermath of it, to stay fit,” she continued. “At the beginning I was like, ‘I’m going to have peace with my body now,’ and what's difficult is that now I have to work harder to maintain a healthy physique.”
She added, “You want to be a sort of perfect person afterwards and it’s so stupid, you know, as if!”
Abela also shared that she thought cancer would turn her into a “saint” who is “so much wiser” and grateful for her body, but that wasn’t the case. The actress said maybe it was because she didn’t have a “slightly closer brush with mortality.”
“It was bleak, but it's everything else that comes with it,” she said on the show. “I was thinking about, ‘Will I be able to be an actor, will I be able to speak, will anyone employ me with a big scar on my neck?’ You have all these vanity things.”
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Marisa Abela
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Abela was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2020 after a doctor discovered a lump on her neck while she was experiencing unusual fatigue, she said in a Jan. 3 interview with The Times.
She underwent an eight-hour surgery to remove the tumor, followed by radioactive iodine treatment.
“I’m all in the clear now, thank God,” she told the outlet, adding that she still attends regular medical checkups and will remain on medication for the rest of her life.
“I don’t have a working thyroid so these pills sort of create one,” Abela explained. “I’m never going to miss those appointments.”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
