Michelle Mone has revealed she had to use some tough love to make sure her mum went through with a life-saving cancer operation.
The Ultimo founder told how she shouted at mum Isobel Allan, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Isobel, 71, had a procedure to have one breast removed as well as reconstructive surgery.
Mone said that as she walked her mum to the operating theatre for the nine-and-a half hour operation, she adopted the same no-nonsense attitude she uses in business.
The Glasgow-born businesswoman revealed that if she hadn’t been so hard-headed, her mum would have died.
Michelle, 49, said: “My mum has recovered from breast cancer. When I found out with my mum, obviously she was in tears for weeks.
“I had to shout at her and say, ‘Shut up – that’s enough.’
“My business mode started to kick in. I thought, ‘If I don’t help my mum now and get her to this consultant and she doesn’t get stronger, she is never going to get through this big operation.’
“So I thought, ‘I’ve got to treat her as if it’s a business.’ And I shouted at her and said, ‘Stop your crying right now or
I’m not going to help you.’ I felt so bad after it.
"She went into a nine-and-a-half hour operation where they took her breast off and they opened up her back. They took fat from her tummy and she had reconstruction.
“I walked her down to the theatre and she was like a little kid. She said, ‘Please, Michelle, don’t leave me.’
“I went, ‘I’m leaving you. Don’t start your nonsense. Get into that theatre right now and you will be out before you know it.’ And she grabbed on to me like a kid and was pulling on to my jacket.
“I said, ‘Get in there right now,’ and I shouted at her. Then I turned and went into the lift and I was balling my eyes out because you can’t keep putting this front on.
“In business you have to. But at the end of the day I’m just a human being like everyone else but in that situation.
“I had to get my mum prepared for that operation. If I’d said, ‘It’s OK, I won’t take you, come home,’ she would have been dead.”
Mone made the comments when she appeared on the High Performance Podcast.
The bra tycoon had celebrated her hen do in Dublin in January last year alongside her mum, who was recovering from the op at the time.
Speaking previously she said: “I am very close to my mum, she’s recently overcome breast cancer. We had our hair and make-up done, drank pints of Guinness watching the rugby, enjoyed lovely meals with cocktails, then danced all night. Mum kept up with us all weekend.”
Mone – who was made a Tory peer in 2015 – tied the knot with Doug Barrowman, 56, in November on the Isle of Man, where the couple live.
She and had planned a lavish £1.5 million wedding at the Palace of Westminster in May last year but coronavirus forced the couple to postpone the ceremony.
