Claira Hermet

The only thing I wish [me and my late sister had] done differently is that we’d spoken about death, because we didn’t. My role was always to make her smile, to make her happy.
 

Born in 1983 and raised on a farm in Essex, Claira Hermet has worked for the likes of the BBC, BT Sport, GRM Daily and SBTV as a TV and radio presenter. Across personal development coaching and content creation on Instagram, YouTube, podcasts and blogging, her work celebrates self-love, body positivity, confidence and acceptance.

When she was nine years old, Claira lost her mother to breast cancer. At the age of 25, her older sister, Emily, was also diagnosed with breast cancer, an illness she struggled with until passing away, aged 31, in 2011. When Claira discovered that she had the BRCA1 gene, which gives carriers an 85% chance of developing breast cancer, she underwent a voluntary double mastectomy and reconstruction in 2015.

After [my sister] passed away my grandparents told me that she’d been to see them and had cried because she was scared, she was petrified to die. When I heard that, I felt like I’d let her down a little bit, I feel like I should have been there to have that conversation.