TV presenter Maria Menounos has revealed she has stage 2 pancreatic cancer.
The 44-year-old – who is expecting a baby with her husband Kevin Undergaro – was diagnosed in January and secretly underwent surgery to remove a 3.9cm tumor.
Maria explained that the surgery was successful and said that detecting the cancer early was key in her case.
“When you’re met with a potential death sentence, everything changes,” the former E! News host told the outlet.
“I need people to know there are places they can go to catch things early.
“You can’t let fear get in the way. I had that moment where I thought I was a goner – but I’m okay because I caught this early enough.”
Maria’s cancer diagnosis came after she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes – which runs in her family – in 2022 and an episode of “excruciating abdominal pain as well as diarrhea later that year.
When she had a CT scan for her gastrointestinal symptoms last fall, nothing was uncovered – which is common with pancreatic cancer.
“They said, ‘Everything’s fine.’ But I kept having pains,” Maria recalled, adding that it felt like “someone was tearing my insides apart.”
She then had a full-body MRI, which showed the mass on her pancreas.
A biopsy revealed it was a cancerous neuroendocrine tumor.
SCARY SURGERY
Maria had the tumor surgically removed on February 16, as well as part of her pancreas, her spleen, a fibroid, and 17 lymph nodes.
Doctors said she does not need chemotherapy or additional treatment but should get annual scans for the next five years.
Maria’s cancer diagnosis comes after she had a brain tumor removed in 2017.
Doctors found a golf ball-sized growth pushing on her facial nerves after she complained of dizziness, headaches, and slurred speech.
The brain mass turned out to be a meningioma, which tends to be benign.
Reflecting on her bout of health issues, the TV personality quipped: “How in the freaking world can I have a brain tumor and pancreatic cancer?”
Her mother Litsa died from brain cancer aged 65 in May 2021.
BABY GIRL
Amid her health issues, Maria is expecting her first child, a baby girl, with husband Kevin via a surrogate.
She told PEOPLE she feels “so grateful and so lucky” to have recovered from her surgery and will “appreciate” her child “so much more.”
The celebrity journalist revealed in February that she is expecting a child after almost 10 years of trying.
She dropped the bombshell on Live with Kelly and Ryan when asked if she has any holiday plans this summer.
The TV star said: “We were going to go to Greece in the summer. We’re having to move that up because we’re having a baby.”
Kelly shrieked: “Oh my God! You’ve been trying a long time.”
Breaking down in tears, Maria replied: “Almost like a decade guys. It’s been a long time.
“We’ve done everything — I mean, literally everything. They’ve tried to get me pregnant, that didn’t work. Keven had surgery, that didn’t work. He’s hung me upside down like a chicken, that didn’t work!”
Maria has been married to Kevin since 2017.
The couple has been struggling with surrogacy since at least 2018, as they discussed on Menounos’s YouTube series, Better Together with Maria Menounos.