Kate Langbroek opened up about the hardest thing she faced during her 20 years working in radio.
Appearing on KIIS Network’s Will & Woody Share My Mood podcast, the broadcaster, 58, said she struggled to talk about her son Lewis’ cancer battle while co-hosting Hit Network’s Hughesy & Kate.
Lewis, now 20, was diagnosed with leukemia when he was just six and still undergoes regular checks at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital after years of treatment.
“There was a period in my life when I was nothing more than a mother and that was when Lewis, our oldest son, had leukemia… I didn’t have room to spare for anything but hospitals,” she said on the podcast.
‘There were many shows, particularly those first six months when I wasn’t there and we never explained on air. Hughesy knew it, the whole team knew it.
Kate Langbroek, 58 (pictured), opened up about the hardest thing she faced during her 20 years in radio.
“Sometimes when I went on the show, it was the only 2 or 3 hours of the day that weren’t about cancer,” he added.
In August 2013, Langbroek spoke for the first time on air about Lewis’ heartbreaking health battle.
“On his birthday, when he finished treatment, he must have been 10, I walked in and said, ‘I’m going to talk about it,'” he explained.
‘I had to believe that everything was okay, so now I could share it. And it was also the story of Lewis when he was sick.
Appearing on The KIIS Network’s Will & Woody Share My Mood podcast, the broadcaster, 58, said talking about her son Lewis’, 20, battle with cancer (left), was one of the hardest things to do which she experienced while co-hosting Hit Network’s Hughesy & Kate.
She continued: “I also wouldn’t have been able to stand being with him publicly as he was a bald kid, but having people come up to him, I just didn’t have that for those conversations either.”
‘So I thought, you know what? It’s time and also because of our relationship with our listeners, I didn’t want to keep this as a secret.’
Langbroek co-hosted the long-running show Hughesy and Kate, which ran from 2001 to 2019, on the Hit network.
Dave remains on air as co-host of 2Day FM’s Hughesy, Ed and Erin breakfast show.
Langbroek has been out of radio since October 2022, after his show The 3pm Pick Up drive was removed from KIIS FM.
‘There were many shows, particularly those first six months when I wasn’t there and we never explained on air. “Hughesy knew it, the whole team knew it,” he told the podcast.
In August 2013, Langbroek spoke for the first time about the experience on the airwaves: “I had to believe that everything was okay, so now I could share it.” And also, it was the story of Lewis when he was sick.