What to Know
In September 2017, Julia Louis-Dreyfus announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. During a recent conversation with Amy Poehler, she revealed that she didn’t actually have the desire to share her diagnosis with the general public. She just felt like she had no choice.
At the time, she was starring in HBO’s Veep. She had to take a break from working on the show as she underwent treatment, which also meant that “250 people weren’t going to be working.” This put Julia in a position where she felt like she couldn’t keep her cancer diagnosis to herself, regardless of how she actually felt about opening up about it.
The topic came up because Amy praised Julia for being so open.
During a recent episode of the Good Hang podcast, Amy told Julia, 64, that her decision to share her diagnosis publicly “was very helpful for a lot of people.” Amy added, “It isn’t something you needed to share. You did.” But Julia admitted that she felt like she had to share even though she’s naturally a “very private” person.
“Well, I was kind of backed into a corner on that one because we had to shut our show down,” Julia said, referring to Veep. “It’s funny how that worked out because normally I would not have done that. I’m very private. But because we had to shut Veep down for a year, I had to say it. 250 people weren’t going to be working. So I had to make a public thing about it.”
Sharing her diagnosis publicly ended up being a positive experience.
Even though it’s not necessarily what she wanted to do, opening up about her diagnosis was actually comforting for her in some ways. “The good thing about doing that was that I did have this incredible experience of people reaching out to me — asking me about my experience going through the breast cancer; for advice. And I was able to help,” she explained.
She added, “There was something unbelievably comforting about being able to do that on the other side of this trauma. There is a lot to be said in self-soothing by soothing others. For real. I don’t mean to sound all Pollyannaish. I actually think it’s true.”
Julia shared her cancer diagnosis on social media in 2017.
On Twitter (now X), she wrote, “1 in 8 women get breast cancer. Today, I’m the one. The good news is that I have the most glorious group of supportive and caring family and friends. The bad news is that not all women are so lucky, so let’s fight all cancers and make universal health care a reality.”
After a double mastectomy and six rounds of chemotherapy, Julia announced she was cancer-free in October 2018.
