Kate Langbroek reveals the hardest thing she faced during her 20 years of radio: ‘I had to believe that everything was all right’

Kate Langbroek has 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 discuss her son Lewis’ cancer battle while co-hosting Hit network’s Hughesy & Kate.

Lewis, now 20, was diagnosed with leukaemia when he was just six years old and still has regular check-ups at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne after undergoing years of treatment.

‘There was a period in my life when I was nothing but a mum which is when Lewis, our eldest son had leukemia… I didn’t have a square to spare for anything but hospitals,’ she told the podcast.

‘There were a lot of shows, particularly those first six months that I wasn’t at and we never explained on-air. Hughesy knew, the whole team knew.’

‘Sometimes when I would go into the show, it would be the only 2-3 hours of the day that wasn’t about cancer,’ she added. 

In August 2013, Langbroek opened up Lewis’ harrowing health battle for the first time on-air. 

‘On his birthday when he finished treatment, so he must’ve been 10, I came in and I just said, “I’m going to talk about it”,’ she explained.

‘I had to believe that everything was all right, so now I could share it. And also, it was Lewis’s story when he was sick.’

Appearing on The KIIS Network’s Will & Woody Share My Mood podcast, the broadcaster, 58, said that discussing her son Lewis’, 20, (left) cancer battle was one of the hardest thing’s she experienced while co-hosting Hit network’s Hughesy & Kate 

She continued: ‘I also could not have borne it to be with him publicly, which I was with a bald child but for people to be coming up, I just didn’t have that for those conversations either.

‘Then I was like, you know what? It’s time and also because of our relationship with our listeners, I didn’t want to have that as a secret.’ 

Langbroek co-hosted the long-running Hughesy and Kate show, which ran from 2001 until 2019, on the Hit network. 

Dave remains on the air as co-host of 2Day FM’s Hughesy, Ed and Erin breakfast show.

Langbroek has been off the radio since October 2022, after her The 3pm Pick Up drive show was axed from KIIS FM.

‘There were a lot of shows, particularly those first six months that I wasn’t at and we never explained on-air. Hughesy knew, the whole team knew,’ she told the podcast

In August 2013 Langbroek opened up about about the experience for the first time on radio airwaves ”I had to believe that everything was all right, so now I could share it. And also, it was Lewis’s story when he was sick’