The Office star Lucy Davis made a light-hearted joke on Instagram about her incurable breast cancer after meeting up with friends for a weekend games night.
Davis, 53, who is living with stage four breast cancer, shared a photograph from the gathering and told followers that she blamed her illness after performing poorly in a party guessing game.
In her Instagram post, the British actress wrote: "A wonderful and much needed games night with good friends! We played 'Celebrity' which I was terrible at so I blamed my cancer. The utterly beautiful dog in the picture is Charlie, and I'm looking after him for a few weeks which is a gift! Thank you guys for coming! Love you all ♥️ #gamesnight."
Celebrity is a parlour guessing game in which players compete across multiple rounds to identify famous names written on slips of paper using verbal clues and charades.
The weekend gathering follows Davis's announcement in August that she had been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. At the time, the actress admitted she "doesn't know how long she has left", adding that she is "at peace with whatever comes next".
Stage four breast cancer diagnosis
Davis first shared news of her illness in August alongside an emotional video showing her ringing a hospital cancer treatment bell. In the accompanying post, she wrote that she had been told it was "too late" for her to undergo chemotherapy.
Stage four breast cancer, also known as metastatic or secondary breast cancer, occurs when cancer cells spread from the breast to other parts of the body. While medical treatments can help control symptoms, the condition is considered incurable. In many cancer treatment centres, patients ring a wall-mounted bell to mark the completion of a course of radiotherapy or other treatment milestones.
Lucy Davis and The Office career
Davis is best known to television audiences for playing receptionist Dawn Tinsley in Ricky Gervais's BBC mockumentary sitcom The Office, which originally aired from 2001 to 2003. Set at the Slough branch of the fictional Wernham Hogg paper company, the series followed the daily lives of office workers and made Davis a household name.
She is the daughter of veteran British stand-up comedian and television presenter Jasper Carrott, 81. Following her breakthrough on The Office, Davis built a film and television career in both the United Kingdom and the United States, appearing in the 2004 zombie comedy film Shaun of the Dead and playing Etta Candy in the 2017 superhero film Wonder Woman.
Aunt Hilda rivalry with Caroline Rhea
Despite her diagnosis, Davis has continued working and entertained fans last week by filming a humorous Instagram video with Canadian actress Caroline Rhea, 62. The pair staged a friendly rivalry over the character of Aunt Hilda Spellman, whom both actresses have played on television.
Rhea portrayed Aunt Hilda Spellman in the original ABC television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, starring alongside Melissa Joan Hart in all seven seasons from 1996 to 2003. Davis later took on the same role in Netflix's rebooted version of the teen series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which ran from 2018 to 2020. Both shows are adapted from the Archie Comics series about a half-mortal teenager raised by her two witch aunts, Hilda and Zelda Spellman.
In the clip shared to both of their Instagram accounts, Rhea dressed in a bright yellow dress while holding a large gold "1" balloon. Boasting that she was the original Aunt Hilda, Rhea said: "Hi everybody, it's me, Aunt Hilda. Hilda Spellman, the OG, Aunt Hilda, number one, the first one that was ever."
Davis, wearing a red minidress, then stepped into the shot, grabbed the balloon and remarked: "Oh hi, thank you so much for holding this for me. I'm Aunt Hilda." Looking over at Rhea, Davis dismissively added: "Oh bless you. I'll have a coffee, two sugars, maybe a little cream."
Reacting to the snub, Rhea moaned: "How many times have we gone over this and how many times are we going to meet each other? I am Aunt Hilda the OG. You are..." She then walked out of the shot and returned carrying a large gold "2" balloon, handing it to Davis and taking back her "1" balloon. "You are the second Aunt Hilda, I am the first," Rhea told her.
Salem VIP meet and greet event
When Davis asked whether Rhea was implying she looked 21, the Canadian actress bluntly replied "no," before turning to the camera and adding: "Let's tell them what we're doing this holiday season." The screen then displayed a promotional poster for a VIP meet and greet in Salem, Massachusetts in late October titled Two Hildas Fly Into A Bar.
Salem, a coastal city in Massachusetts known for the 1692 witch trials, attracts large crowds every October for its annual Halloween celebrations. Alongside her upcoming appearance with Rhea, Davis has kept herself busy hiking and seeing friends after saying she has "made her peace with the diagnosis".
Captioning the promotional video on Instagram, Rhea wrote: "I'm very excited to announce that the brilliantly funny @reallucydavis and I will be flying to Salem to try to repopulate the witch population. Lucy is hilarious and we are going to share our stories about how we both ended up playing this our own version of Aunt Hilda and stories and pictures from our lives. We're doing a VIP meet and greet with pictures and autographs and a swag bag( I'm an Aries it's a good one!) I have fallen in love with Salem and all its residents. Hope to see you there."
Davis responded to her fellow Aunt Hilda actress in the comments, writing: "Bring it on 'Aunt Hilda'!"
