Katie Couric says she was “nervous” to tell her daughters that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer this summer.
“I told them, but I was very reassuring, but I saw on their faces. You know, it’s just hard to deliver that news, no matter how you do it,” the news anchor said as she returned to the “Today” show for an interview Monday morning.
“But I assured them that I was going to be fine.”
Couric’s daughter Carrie, 26, accompanied the journalist, 65, to her lumpectomy in July to remove the cancer and even sang Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” as her mom was wheeled into the operating room.
“She’s so funny. … They’ve been incredibly supportive,” Couric said of Carrie and Ellie, 31, whom she shared with her late husband, Jay Monahan.
In an Instagram post encouraging her followers to go for health screenings, the self-described “screen queen” said that her kids serve as her “reasons” for prioritizing her health.
“Share a photo with whoever or whatever inspires you to put your health first, and share it on social using the hashtag, #IScreenYouScreen,” she captioned a photo of Carrie and Ellie hanging out with her in Central Park. “I will repost you! Here are two of my reasons… what are yours? #iscreenyouscreen.”
Couric announced on Sept. 28 — just days before the start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month — that she had been diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer on June 21, which was also her eighth wedding anniversary with her second husband, John Molner.
Referencing how her daughters lost Monahan to colon cancer in 1998, the “Going There” author wrote in an essay, “The idea of losing another [parent] was unfathomable.”
Couric shared on “Today” Monday that she “finished radiation last week” and is “feeling just fine.”
