Celebrities Who Have Battled & Kicked Cancer’s Ass

Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Veep's Julia Louis-Dreyfus revealed in September 2017 that she was diagnosed with breast cancer. "1 in 8 women get breast cancer," she wrote in a post on Instagram. "Today, I'm the one."In March, her friend and fellow actor Tony Hale gave an update, sharing that her treatments are going well. "She's great!" he shared with Entertainment Tonight. "She’s going through her own journey, and man, we've been talking off and on. But we’re going to be ready to shoot in the summer. She's really doing fantastic."

Christina Applegate

Christina Applegate was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, discovering she was a carrier of the BRCA gene. She underwent a double mastectomy and has been an active fundraiser.

"I had gotten a mammogram every year from the time I was 30 years old," Applegate told Elle in 2014. "And my doctor finally said, 'You know, I can't see. It's too dense in there. We need to go deeper.' And we did, and I had cancer."

Sharon Osbourne

Sharon Osbourne has been very open about her battle with colon cancer, the second leading cause of death in the United States. She not only battled colorectal cancer in 2002 but also had a double mastectomy in 2012 when she discovered she was at risk of breast cancer.

"I was going through chemo, and I'd had a massive seizure," Osbourne revealed on The Talk in 2015. "They gave me a blood transfusion, and that didn’t work and then they gave me the old electric shock treatment — to stop me [from] talking."

Edie Falco

Edie Falco says she kept her breast cancer under the radar while she was filming The Sopranos. 

"I found out in the morning, and then I had to go to work, and I told very few people, but I told the producer," Falco told NPR in 2014. "I said, 'I have an opportunity to meet this doctor in an hour, can I go and do that and then come back and shoot?' And that's what I did. I met this one doctor who talked me through the next step or whatever, and then I went and shot a couple of scenes after that, and that was pretty surreal."

Michael C. Hall

Dexter's Michael C. Hall was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma while shooting the show's fourth season. He kept it a secret on set and began chemotherapy treatment the day after the season wrapped."I thought, 'Well, I can treat this successfully and if my hair falls out [which it did] I'll wear a wig during the fifth season — and I won't even have to share with anyone that this is happening,' he told The Guardian in 2014. "But I thought it would be conspicuous if I showed up (at the 2010 Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild award ceremonies) without eyebrows, and so I made an announcement."

Ben Stiller

The Zoolander actor opened up about his battle with prostate cancer on The Howard Stern Show. He was diagnosed in 2014, and in 2015, he opened up about it further in an essay he wrote for Medium.

"This is a complicated issue, and an evolving one," Stiller wrote. "But in this imperfect world, I believe the best way to determine a course of action for the most treatable, yet deadly cancer, is to detect it early."

Cynthia Nixon

Native New Yorker and star of Sex and the City Cynthia Nixon also battled breast cancer. She was diagnosed in 2002.

"I go for my completely routine mammogram and then I get a call from my gynecologist. And she says, 'Well, I have some — it's not such great news, but here it is, but it's very small and we're just going to get in there and take it right out, right away, and then you'll probably have radiation,'" Nixon told Nightline in 2008."I felt scared… I thought, 'Oh, I don't want this to be happening.' I was very cognizant of if it's going to happen, this is the best way for it to happen, that it's found so early and we can just get right on it."

Sheryl Crow

Sheryl Crow was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006 — and it informed her life in every possible way, she told InStyle in 2016.

"Up until the point I was diagnosed, I was a person who made it my mission to please everyone," she said. "Then when I got breast cancer, I learned how to say no and listen to my instincts. If I didn’t want to do something, why force myself to do it because it would mean something to someone else? It may sound selfish, but it’s been a real lifesaver. My life choices in general have been a direct result of having this illness."

Rita Wilson

Rita Wilson underwent a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgery after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. 

"I had initially been misdiagnosed and was told I didn't have cancer," she wrote in an essay for Harper's Bazaar in September 2017. "But a friend suggested that I get a second opinion on my pathology. I did, and was stunned to hear the words you never want to hear: 'You have cancer.'"

Janice Dickinson

Model and reality TV star Janice Dickinson revealed in April 2016 that she had breast cancer. She went through eight weeks of radiation and two lumpectomies.

"I have to shout from the top of my lungs, 'These are sacred lives that we've been blessed to have and we have to take care of ourselves,'" Dickinson told People in 2016. "Life is amazing, but it can be cut short if you don't take your health into your own hands. If you feel something's not right, get a second opinion. Be afraid. And let that fear fuel your fight against this motherfucking disease."

Shannen Doherty

Shannen Doherty shared heartbreaking photos in July 2016 of shaving her head in preparation for her hair loss. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2015, when a tumor was found."I think what's beautiful and hard and interesting about cancer is that it tears you down and builds you, and tears you down and builds you," she told Chelsea Handler on her Netflix show Chelsea in 2016. "It remakes you so many different times. The person I thought I was supposed to be or was going to be or who I thought I was six months ago is now somebody completely different. I realize, 'Wow, I really thought that I was so brave and so gracious this entire time, and really I was just hiding.'"

Olivia Newton-John

Olivia Newton-John has had breast cancer twice in her life: She was diagnosed the first time in 1992 and again in May 2017. She told Today in September 2017 that she isn't as frightened this time around as she was back in the '90s.

"That part of it was just probably the most frightening the first time, when you have a young child — I need to be around to raise her," she said. "Well, I did it, and she's OK, so it wasn't as scary."

Kathy Bates

Kathy Bates is also a two-time survivor, having battled both breast cancer and ovarian cancer. She was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer in 2012 and survived ovarian cancer in 2003."Cancer and its aftermath changed my outlook in a profound way," she told Parade magazine in July 2017. "I've become less of a hermit and I travel more. I really enjoy every moment of my life now. It's not that every moment is terrific — we all go through tough times — but I try to be more present and grateful for the good times that I have."

Hoda Kotb

Hoda Kotb underwent a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery in March 2007. Since then, she's been very open about how it affected her life."Cancer shaped me, but it did not define me. It's part of me, but not all of me. It just goes to show you that in my early 40s, I was sick, I was getting divorced, and I was in a job that I wasn't suited for," she said at the Breast Cancer Research Foundation's symposium in October 2017. "I'm now 53 years old, I have a guy I love, a baby who is the light of my life. She’s so sweet! And [I have] a job that's pretty cool, too, so 53 is awesome."

Robert De Niro

Best known for surviving the mob in The Godfather, Robert De Niro survived prostate cancer in real life. According to Newsday, De Niro's agent revealed in October 2003 that he was being treated for prostate cancer. And in an interview with Larry King in 2006, De Niro revealed he had a prostatectomy and that his father was also diagnosed with prostate cancer but chose not to do anything about it."I mean, as far as I'm concerned, he might have been alive today if he had faced it," he told King. "And he was terrified. And at that time it was a little more different."You're told about an operation like that maybe — we're talking 20 — over 20 years ago, 23 years ago. He was — I was with him when the doctor explained what he would do, and this particular doctor wasn't that sensitive. He was like — he reminded me of the doctor from East of Eden, I think it was, with the nurse…"

Giuliana Rancic

Giuliana Rancic was diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2011."Before I was diagnosed, I thought I knew quite a bit about breast cancer, but in reality, I had no idea that understanding your unique diagnosis is critical to receiving the right treatment," she told Shape in April. "I was 36 years old when I was first diagnosed and had no family history, so it was quite an emotional whirlwind for me — I know so many women who feel the same way. But it's in those moments that you have to put your health in your own hands."

Maura Tierney

The Good Wife and ER actor Maura Tierney was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in 2009 and went on to play a woman with breast cancer on the TV show Rescue Me, calling the experience "liberating.""I felt like I had to do it," she told Parade magazine in 2015. "It was quite liberating, actually. I felt very safe there and they really listened to me talking about the script. I felt like I had to do it. I've never watched it. It was an experience."

Wanda Sykes

Wanda Sykes underwent breast reduction surgery in February 2011 and opened up in detail to People at the time about it. Standard tissue sampling revealed that Sykes had ductal carcinoma in situ, a noninvasive type of breast cancer, so she chose to treat it by having a mastectomy."They did the bilateral mastectomy and put in skin expanders at the same time, so when I woke up, my chest was just on fire," she started. "After being in the recovery room for several hours, I had a panic attack. I'm anemic, so they were having trouble drawing my blood. They were about to stick me again, and all of a sudden I couldn't breathe. Everything that had happened just hit me at that moment. It was too much. I just sobbed."She continued to say she made the decision to undergo surgery because she loves life."The kids are also a huge part because you want to be around for them. My scars? I barely see them. I feel whole; I really do. Because every day, I get to say, 'There’s no cancer.' I'm healthy, and that's beautiful."