Fran Drescher is opening up about surviving cancer after being diagnosed at age 42.
The 68-year-old actress sat down for an in-depth interview with People magazine that covered her health crisis, along with her divorce and where her career stands today.
‘I ended up being diagnosed with uterine cancer. But uterine cancer typically hits women that are post-menopausal or obese,’ said the star.
‘I was ultimately diagnosed at 42, so if it started around — maybe around 40, maybe earlier — I was not post-menopausal and I was not obese. So I slipped between the cracks,’ she recalled.
But The Nanny vet said she considers herself ‘lucky’ to have received the diagnosis when she did.
‘Mine was in stage one, which means it was resting on the uterine lining but it hadn’t penetrated it, it hadn’t started to dig in, so I was very lucky,’ she told the outlet.
Fran Drescher is opening up about surviving cancer after being diagnosed at age 42; pictured in January 2024
Drescher recalled being diagnosed with uterine cancer at age 42, and said she feels ‘lucky’ to have received the diagnosis when she did; pictured in December; pictured in 2004
‘I was, at that point, with a man 16 years my junior. For the first time in my life, I wanted to have his kid. My destiny was that that wasn’t ever gonna happen,’ the star lamented.
Instead of preserving her chances of becoming a mother by freezing her eggs, she was forced to undergo cancer treatment.
Drescher explained in 2020 that her cancer was linked to a harrowing ordeal she suffered in 1985 — being raped at gunpoint.
Her husband at the time, Peter Jacobson, was also attacked, tied up and forced to witness the sexual assault.
Following the traumatizing event, she threw herself into work and caregiving.
‘It was strange — and kind of poetic — that my reproductive organs, of all things, had cancer,’ she told CNN’s Ana Cabrera six years ago.
‘But it was also an amazing affirmation that pain finds its way to exactly the right place in the body if you don’t deal with it,’ she noted.
Drescher elaborated, ‘[Because] I hadn’t been paying attention to my own vulnerabilities, my pain from the rape lodged itself in my uterus. No one else around me had cancer. That was a rude awakening.’
Doling out advice to other women, she warned, ‘Don’t ignore something and hope it goes away or drive yourself into an early grave because you feel like you have too much stuff to do for everyone else.
‘That is a pitfall women often experience. I’m here to say, “Stop that!”‘
In 2002 the comedienne published a memoir called Cancer Schmancer
The actress starred on the CBS sitcom The Nanny from 1993-1999
Elsewhere in her new interview with People, Drescher discussed her role in the blockbuster Marty Supreme, which hit theaters on Christmas.
Timothée Chalamet stars in the Josh Safdie film, which is inspired by ping pong champion Marty Mauser.
The actress plays Chalamet’s mother in the A24 movie.
‘I was delighted to be cast as his mom,’ said the Queens, New York native.
And she said of the Critics Choice Award-winning actor: ‘He’s very nice and very talented, so I’m thrilled for him and all of his success.’
She then quipped, ‘But it’s not like he wanted to be my best friend… even though I was open to it!’
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