Amanda Peet explains why she kept cancer diagnosis secret
Actress Amanda Peet has explained she decided to keep her cancer diagnosis secret because she refused to tell her kids until the doctors has decided on a treatment plan.
Amanda Peet has explained why she decided to keep her cancer diagnosis secret for six months.
The 54-year-old actress went public with her health crisis in March when she wrote about her experience in a candid essay for The New Yorker revealing a check-up in August showed tumours in her breast which turned out to be a form of cancer. The magazine piece marked the first time Amanda revealed her diagnosis to the world as she initially kept the cancer news within a very small circle of trusted loves ones - her two best friends and her husband, David Benioff - and she's now explained she kept it all quiet for the sake of her children, Frances, 18, Molly, 15, and Henry, 11.
During an appearance on the Smartless podcast, she explained: "I think [I kept it secret] because we didn't tell the kids right away ... We dropped Frankie off at college the week before ...
"Most types of cancer it takes a while to find out where you are, like what is your treatability, what kind of breast cancer [it is], how big is your tumour ...
"The waiting is insane-making ... We didn't want to tell the kids for a while until we knew whether I was going to do chemo and what the course of treatment was going to be.
"So I wanted to keep it a secret because I wasn't even telling my children."
Amanda also revealed she feels "very lucky" because her treatment involved a lumpectomy and radiation therapy and not a double mastectomy or chemotherapy.
She said: "I was very lucky. I'm clear. I did radiation ... I was extremely lucky the cancer they found [was treatable] ... I was very, very lucky."
During the podcast, Amanda also spoke about finding out about her cancer during the "weekend from hell" as both her parents were in hospice care and her dad passed away just days after she was given the worrying news from her doctor.
Amanda recently told how she needed to "get [herself] together" before she eventually revealed her cancer diagnosis to Frances, Molly, and Henry - admitting there was never going to be the "perfect" time to tell them their mom has cancer, but she but praised them for their response.
She told E! News: "They've been great. I definitely had to get myself together before including them. The hard part was realising that nothing is certain and there was going to be no perfect time to tell them."
