A “DEEPLY caring” businessman who built a successful brand of gourmet noodles and had repeated treatments for cancer has died at the age of 54.

Damien Lee – the man behind Bournemouth Mr Lee’s Noodles – launched a podcast in the final months of his life which attracted guests including Hollywood star Wesley Snipes and actress Claire Holt.

At the time, he said he had undergone 78 treatments for cancer and that his body could not take any more chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

A statement from Bournemouth-based Mr Lee’s Noodles said: “It is with a collective sad and heavy heart that we, the Mr Lee’s Family, relay the passing of our founder Damien, after battling fiercely and so courageously through the challenges of cancers over the past six years.

“Damien’s energy, enthusiasm, creativity, his twinkling rebelliousness and his deeply caring nature are an entrenched inspiration to us all.

“His vision and mission for Mr Lee’s to help people to be more healthy through eating better has never been more relevant and motivating. We are deeply committed to fulfil what he began."

Wesley Snipes, Claire Holt and Bella Twins open up to podcast host Damien King Lee

Mr Lee, originally from Sydney, Australia, was diagnosed in 2014 with stage four non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He was told he had weeks to live and that chemotherapy would be pointless.

However, he underwent chemo and transformed his lifestyle, leading him to launch his healthy instant noodle brand in 2016.

“I’m immensely proud to say we’re a Bournemouth brand,” he told the Daily Echo in 2016.

“I’m from Sydney and we came here attracted by the beach. I went to Sandbanks and said, ‘This is almost like Sydney’.”

Mr Lee’s Noodles to offer Bournemouth residents a stake in the business

His cancer was in remission when Mr Lee’s Noodles was launched but he was diagnosed with an unrelated cancer of the neck and throat in 2017. He had radiotherapy and neck surgery but learned in 2019 that the cancer had returned.

After treatments including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and multiple operations, he had a further course of chemotherapy put on hold during the Covid crisis.

“I was of course frustrated and upset, but I also understand the pressures the NHS are under due to the pandemic,” he said.

“I saw first-hand the shortages in the NHS and the nurses who were struggling to find something nourishing to eat during their long shifts. So we decided to donate thousands of noodles to hospitals all over the UK."

Mr Lee's Noodles founder on beating cancer twice and men’s health

He was told last September that his most recent treatment had not worked and that he would not survive further chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

“I’m not going to stop trying to cure my cancer. I want to at least live with it long enough to see my boys graduate from university and get married,” he said.

His podcast, Life Is… With Damien King Lee, was intended to help other people going through life-changing experiences.

Wesley Snipes discussed his poor upbringing and being jailed for fraud in 2008, Claire Holt discussed postnatal depression and miscarriage, and WWE wrestlers the Bella Twins talked about growing up with a drug-addicted father, as well as Nikki Bella’s experience of sexual abuse.