The Crown star Olivia Williams will never be cancer-free due to late diagnosis: 'They told me I was menopausal'

Olivia Williams says she'll never be cancer-free.

The English actress, perhaps best known for playing Camilla Parker Bowles on The Crown and Bruce Willis' onscreen wife in The Sixth Sense, has shared harrowing details about her cancer journey in a new interview.

Williams explained that after experiencing prolonged fatigue, chronic diarrhea, and limb aches, she was first misdiagnosed with lupus and perimenopause. It took four years and 10 doctors to finally discover a cancerous tumor in her pancreas in 2018.

The actress told the U.K.'s The Times, "If someone had f---ing well diagnosed me in the four years I'd been saying I was ill, when they told me I was menopausal or had irritable bowel syndrome or [was] crazy — I used that word advisedly because one doctor referred me for a psychiatric assessment — then one operation possibly could have cleared the whole thing and I could describe myself as cancer-free, which I cannot now ever be."

She added that she went on "about 21" doctor visits before she was correctly diagnosed.

Williams, who has also appeared in projects like Rushmore and the HBO series Dune: Prophecy, said that despite that initial tumor's eventual removal, she still has to combat new metastases. "I go in like a puppy with this optimistic, bright face and then they give me bad news and it's like, 'Oh my God, I fell for it again,'" Williams said.