The ‘Dancing with the Stars’ alum shared how her thyroid cancer diagnosis impacted her kids — and how her illness was a “learning lesson” for her
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/brooke-burke-red-carpet-070924-39f76be8a26b42c6a5ca179f32fcd863.jpg "Brooke Burke at The Breast Cancer Research Foundation Symposium & Awards Luncheon at Hilton Midtown on October 20, 2023 in New York City")
Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty
Brooke Burke in New York City in 2023
Brooke Burke is looking back on how she managed her 2012 thyroid cancer diagnosis — and how it was “really unfortunate” how her children found out.
At the time, Burke, now 52, decided to share the news of her diagnosis in a video on YouTube — and as she told told chef Curtis Stone on his podcast, Getting Grilled, “I didn’t want it to be a headline and to start showing up everywhere with, like, that f—– up picture and ‘Brooke has cancer.’ “
“I decided to tell my own story,” Burke said.
However, she added, “My daughter saw it on my phone before I had posted it. She was like, ‘What the F, mom? Like, how could you not tell me?’ “
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Brooke Burke, fiancé Scott Rigsby, and children in 2023
Burke added that her kids “immediately [went] to, ‘Are you gonna die? Are you dying?’ “
“And I think that’s what people hear when you hear those words that ‘You have cancer.’ You go, ’Ooh my God, I’m dying.’ And that’s heavy and that’s hard.”
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The actress, who shares daughter Rain, 17, and son Shaya, 16, with ex-husband David Charvet, as well as daughters Neriah, 24, and Sierra, 22, with ex-husband Garth Fisher, told Stone that a cancer diagnosis impacts the whole family — not just the patient.
“What the family goes through… they’re going through cancer as well,” the Dancing with the Stars alum said.
However, Burke also said that cancer was a “learning lesson” for her.
Related: Brooke Burke Shares Why She and Fiancé Scott Rigsby Haven’t Tied the Knot Yet (Exclusive)
“There’s something larger and greater than me,” she said, adding that she didn’t understand how she ended up with cancer. “I live this healthy life. I was like, ’Cancer, what? Like, me?’ “
“I was like, I don’t even have time for cancer. Like, what?”
However, she said, “I decided to become a really great patient, and to assemble a proper team, and to really get down into caring for myself, and finding faith in my own body and in my team. And I’m one of those people now where I never miss a physical.”
Burke told Stone that that after sharing her diagnosis, she connected with others who had thyroid cancer and “I realized how many people have never had a physical.”
“I’m telling you, it’s that two-hour, really annoying, time consuming, possibly expensive physical that’s gonna give you some life-changing, life-saving information.”
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But, Burke admitted, “Those kind of things will rattle you.”
“It made me realize how powerful things are that are out of our control. And then, it’s really how you deal with it.”
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