We are in the midst of a gratitude overload.
The word is fast going the way of its literary cousin, “authenticity,” largely because it is bandied about by influencers who use it to describe even the most innocuous things.
It has, for lack of a better term, lost its sting.
However, when it comes to planting a flag of ownership right between the I and the ‘tude, that honour lies fairly and squarely with Annabelle Gigliotti.
The trade media industry was left in shock when, back in March 2025, Gigliotti announced she had been diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and would be stepping away from her role as Head of Entertainment at Organic Pacific.
Now, more than a year on, Gigliotti has sat down exclusively with Mediaweek to speak candidly about treatment, fear, creativity, work, and why – against all odds – she would not change a thing.
Gigliotti is the person who makes heads turn when she enters a room. Not because she is loud or boisterous, but rather because her warmth filters through and out into the spaces between.
Her once long blonde hair, just one of the many victims of the disease’s wrath, is now a wispy pixie, which she runs her fingers through.
“I’m thinking of keeping it,” she asked Mediaweek before our exclusive interview with an almost devilish grin. “Should I keep it?”
Yes. Yes, you should.
In most interviews, there is an assistant or a junior staff member tasked with running around organising water and tea before everyone settles into their seats.
But in this case, it is Gigliotti who motions for us to follow her into Havas’ communal kitchen as she prepares the drinks herself; peppermint for her, green tea for me.
There is no performance to her warmth. Just hard-won ease.
Annabelle Gigliotti
‘I just felt like that wasn’t right’
“It’s been an incredible journey,” she said.
“I’m probably quite delusional because even when I was first diagnosed, and they said stage four, and that the prognosis was very grim, I just felt like that wasn’t right. I just had a gut feeling that this isn’t where my journey was heading.”
That journey has, at times, been brutal.
“I’m not going to lie, it was absolutely terrifying and the most hideous 18 months of my life,” she said.
“But what I have learned along the way has been so calming. I think I’m more at peace now than I’ve ever been in my life.”
It is a striking thing to hear from someone who works in entertainment publicity – an industry built on noise and urgency, and one that speaks about burnout with a hint of pride.
Founded in October 2021, Organic Pacific has grown into a specialist entertainment agency spanning PR, social media, influencer marketing, partnerships, and events. The business now works with clients including Netflix Australia, Sony Pictures Entertainment and NBCUniversal.
For years, Gigliotti had lived inside the constant momentum of entertainment publicity – the campaigns, premieres, deadlines and never-ending media cycle.
Then, suddenly, everything came to a halt.
Stepping outside the noise
“When you work in comms, you’re on all the time,” she says. “So it was almost a gift to step outside that for 18 months and be a genuine consumer for the first time in 25 years.
“It gave me a third-person perspective, which helped me understand what cuts through when you’re not in the echo chamber of our own industry.”
Cancer, she carefully explained, sharpened her perspective.
“When you know what the stakes are, you can come into fast-paced environments like work and operate within the system, but also a little outside it,” she said.
“You can still be as passionate and care just as much, but you don’t get pulled in every direction by all the emotions.”
Still, throughout treatment, work remained at the forefront of her mind.
“When I was going through treatment, my big dream at the time was, it’s so lame, but I wanted to come back to work,” she said
“I love what I do, I’ve always loved what I do, I love my team.”
James Wright, Annabelle Gigliotti, and Sarah Smith
‘The building is better with you in it’
That affection is clearly mutual.
Gigliotti becomes emotional speaking about the support she received from Havas and her Organic team during her time away.
“From the very beginning, James Wright and the team told me that if you want to come back an hour a week, it doesn’t matter; the building is better with you in it,” she says.
Mostly, though, she said she simply craved normality.
“It’s honestly felt like coming home, coming back to Havas.”
Even her return carried a touch of humour.
“I did about a month before I came back, where I said I was only going to all the parties and the fun things,” she laughed.
“Day one, it felt like I was just back where I was meant to be. The landing couldn’t have been softer.”
Life with a chemo bag
The reality, however, is that treatment continues.
Gigliotti still undergoes chemotherapy every two weeks.
“I’ve got a chest port, and go in on Wednesdays and bring home a little pump and a bag,” she explained matter-of-factly.
“I’ll come into the office with my little chemo bag, because I wear it for 48 hours. I’ve got outfits that I plan around it.”
And yet, somehow, she says she feels stronger now than she did before the diagnosis.
“I feel more energised than I have in a really long time because I was probably sick for six months before I was diagnosed,” she said. “Now I feel amazing”
There is no self-pity in the telling. If anything, there is curiosity.
Why creativity never stopped
She speaks animatedly about creativity, podcasts, entertainment and culture. About wanting Organic to expand further into music and audio. About lying in bed during treatment, firing ideas off to staff via text message.
“Creativity is almost like an impulse, you can’t stop it,” she said.
That instinct for entertainment PR has not dulled – if anything, it has intensified.
And while Gigliotti is quick to point out that “we’re not saving lives”, she believes deeply in the role culture plays in shaping people.
“I met a girl at chemo who told me she got checked for breast cancer after she watched Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix,” she says.
“The culture can feel fluffy, but it is actually so important.”
Kaitlyn Dever as Belle Gibson in the Netflix limited series ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’.
‘Go and get checked’
There is also a practical urgency to her message now.
Colon cancer rates among younger Australians are rising, something Gigliotti urges more people to understand.
“On a very practical level, the ‘I never think it will happen to me’ mentality, we definitely need to erase that,” she said.
“I had no history of cancer in my family on either side. I had no reason to suspect.”
“Go and get checked. Push your doctors if you feel like something is wrong.”
‘I would change nothing’
Finally, the thing that seems to sit underneath everything she says – it’s not optimism exactly, but rather, acceptance.
“I cannot express the gratitude I feel for my life, my job, my family,” she said.
“I feel very, very lucky. And I feel very, very lucky even for this experience that I’ve had.”
“So when I say I would change nothing, I mean nothing. I would not change my diagnosis because I think I’ve learned so much from it.”
“It’s been a full, wonderful and incredible life, and I’m really grateful for it.”
Main image: Annabelle Gigliotti