Deborah Meaden's Dragon's Den makeup artist spotted cancerous pimple on her

Deborah Meaden was diagnosed with skin cancer after her makeup artist on ‘Dragon’s Den’ noticed a pimple on her face.

The 63-year-old investor and entrepreneur has spoken for the first time about her cancer scare and how fortunate she is that it was caught early.

Speaking about the diagnosis to Vogue Williams’ on Boots’ ‘Taboo Talk’ podcast, Deborah said: “I was aware of [how much the sun could damage my skin], I’m quite fair-skinned but oddly I’ve never really burnt and I think that was a problem for me.

“I kind of thought that I was immune to it… I thought, I might look fair, but obviously my skin can handle it. So it was a bit of a shock when I realised there was some damage done.”

Deborah's doctor found she had squamous of the skin, a common form of skin cancer that develops in the squamous cells that make up the middle and outer layers of the skin.

She shared: “I was filming Dragon’s Den, and I don’t get spots, but my makeup artist had noticed what looked like a [tiny little] whitehead that had been on my face for probably about six weeks.

“She kept saying, ‘That’s not right, Deborah’, and I thought, ‘OK that’s really weird, I don’t usually get spots’. I was going off to Africa and I thought, before I go, I just need to get that checked out.

“I sent a picture to my doctor, who said it could be something, it might not, but it could be something. Then he got me an appointment with a local hospital and I went along and they told me, ‘You’ve got squamous.’”

Deborah had the pimple removed and was very "lucky" to nip cancer in the bud and is raising awareness by imploring everyone to get their odd-looking pimples checked out and to wear at least Factor 50 suncream.

She added: “When I say I was lucky, we caught it incredibly early. I’m evangelical now about saying to people, if you’ve got a little odd pimple that won’t go, don’t just think it’s a pimple.

“I’ve always looked for moles, I know all the rules about moles, I’ve never looked for something that actually looked like a whitehead. I would never have known if it wasn’t for Sue, thank goodness.”