‘Grease’ Star Didi Conn Reveals Olivia Newton-John Health Update as She Battles Cancer for the Third Time

Olivia Newton-John is doing “beautifully well” even as she fights cancer for a third time, her Grease co-star Didi Conn said Monday. Newton-John, 70, previously battled cancer in 1992 and 2013, and was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in May 2017. Conn, 68, said she is doing well.

“The best news I heard is that Olivia Newton John is doing beautifully well. Her spirit shines. I just love her,” Conn told This Morning, reports The Daily Mail. “Her husband is this miracle maker of growing different herbs and cannabis is really working for her for pain.”

Conn, who played Frenchie in the 1978 musical, told This Morning that most of the Grease cast is still in contact.

“Oh yeah. In the movie we said, we’ll always be together and we made friends that have lasted forty years. It’s crazy,” Conn explained, even joking that they stayed in character between takes on the film set.

In fact, the last update on Newton-John’s condition came from John Travolta.

“She looks incredible,” Travolta told Entertainment Tonight last month. “She doesn’t look any different than [she did] years ago, and I’m very proud of her… I’m very happy about Olivia.”

The “Physical” singer was first diagnosed with cancer in 1992, and had a partial mastectomy. The cancer returned in 2013. In 2017, she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. During an interview with 60 Minutes Australia earlier this year, Newton-John said she was lucky to be alive.

“I’m so lucky that I’ve been through this three times and I’m still here,” she said at the time. “We know we’re gonna die at some point, and we don’t know when it is. When you’re given a cancer diagnosis or a scary honest diagnosis, you’re suddenly given a possibility of a time limit… So every day is a gift.”

Newton-John revealed in the past she was using medicinal marijuana in her cancer battle, with the help of husband John Easterling, who is growing cannabis himself.

“I weaned myself off morphine with cannabis, which I want everyone to know,” she explained on 60 Minutes. “I had a fractured sacrum at the time, too, and I was determined not to become addicted [to morphine]. Thankfully I was able to get off it. When I started taking [cannabis] my pain level got so much less and [more] manageable. I was more mobile, I was sleeping. It took a lot of anxiety away.”

In August, Newton-John made a public appearance at a benefit show in Hollywood, where she told Entertainment Tonight she was “doing great.”

“I’m doing really well and I’m really healthy,” she said. “It was a challenging year because I broke my sacrum and I had to learn to walk again and everything. But I am strong and I am back and I’m feeling good and loving every minute.”

Newton-John’s most recent acting appearance came in 2015’s Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. Her most recently released album was 2016’s Friends For Christmas.

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