Her close friend, English journalist Elizabeth Day wrote that she “never understood the truth of the phrase ‘she lights up a room’ until [she] met Mel”.

Two weeks ago, Mel shared the news that her health was declining. After cancer metastasised to her brain, doctors confirmed there was “nothing further” they could do.

Mel passed away yesterday.

In what would become her last-ever Instagram post, she left her followers with one final piece of advice.

“If I could leave you with one thing, it would simply be this,” Mel wrote. “If something doesn’t feel right, please get it checked out. It might just save your life.”

Mel was first diagnosed with colon cancer in December 2023. When she first shared her diagnosis, she said a “tumour the size of a lemon” was discovered during a scan.

Initially, Mel thought her symptoms might just be a result of jet lag.

“The last quarter of 2023, I was in Australia filming MAFS and there was a crossover with filming in the UK so I had to fly back and forth,” she told The Mirror in May 2024.

“That was hard because it’s a long flight, so you’ve got the tiredness and the jet lag and I’m 52! My body was complaining about all the long-haul flights and I thought that’s all it was.”

The MAFS expert described her symptoms starting with stomach pain. As a self-described “foodie”, she realised things were wrong when she couldn’t eat or even keep down a cup of tea.

By the time she returned home from the UK, Mel hadn’t eaten in a week or been to the bathroom in three. She’d lost six kilograms.

“Things were serious. But I never thought it would be cancer,” she said.

After another routine scan in 2024, she discovered the cancer had metastisised and spread to her lungs.

“My world changed again in an instant,” Mel said of the new diagnosis in an Instagram post.

After that, Mel said she “underwent 16 rounds of chemotherapy and was later told [she] was eligible for a groundbreaking clinical trial specific to [her] gene type”.

That trial, she said, was due to start in March 2026 and her “optimism soared”.

Unfortunately, her condition worsened.

“Over Christmas, however, I began experiencing blinding headaches and numbness down my right side,” she wrote. “After many tests, I was told the cancer had spread to the left side of my brain and, despite subsequent radiotherapy sessions.”

After that, Mel was told there was nothing more her oncology team could do.

“Hearing those words changes everything,” she wrote.

Colon cancer, the cancer Mel was diagnosed with in 2023, is a type of bowel cancer that can spread to other organs if it advances, per Cancer Council Australia.

The organisation notes that approximately 14,000 Australias are diagnosed with bowel cancer each year. Early detection is the most effective way to improve survival rates and treatment success.

Cancer Council Australia recommends all eligible people undergo bowel cancer screening “every two years”, which is available through the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program for people aged between 45 and 74.

For anyone with concerns about symptoms, it is recommended to speak to a GP.

Mel lived for just over two years after she was first diagnosed.

Feature image: Instagram/@mel_schilling1.