Al Roker Reveals He Has Prostate Cancer

Al Roker

Al Roker Reveals He Has Prostate Cancer

Prayers are going out for longtime TV personality Al Roker as he has announced he has prostate cancer.

The TODAY host co-host, 66, announced the news on the show Friday morning (Nov. 6th).

“The good news is we caught it early. [The] not great news is that it’s a little aggressive, so I’m going to be taking some time off to take care of this. It’s a little more common than people realize. And so I just decided that I wanted to go public with this… If you detect it early, this is a really treatable disease. That’s why I wanted to take you along my journey so we can all learn together how to educate and protect the men in our lives.”

Our friend and colleague @AlRoker reveals that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. pic.twitter.com/hnAUX4xfX3

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 6, 2020

He said he hopes to spread awareness as 1 in 7 African-American men and 1 in 9 men in general will have a prostate cancer diagnosis.

He added:

“I don’t want people thinking, ‘Oh, poor Al,’ you know, because I’m gonna be OK.”

Al Roker was diagnosed shortly after getting a physical. His doctor noticed he had high prostate-specific antigen (PSA) after taking blood tests. Al Roker went on to get an MRI and a biopsy before he was officially diagnosed on Sept. 29th.

“When he started, he closed his door and said, ‘I always like to have these discussions face to face.’ And I was like, ‘Uh-oh. Well, that doesn’t sound good.’ You hear the word ‘cancer’ and your mind goes, it’s the next level, you know?”

He continued and said he regretted not having his wife, Deborah Roberts of ABC News, at the appointment with him.

“I feel badly, because I didn’t tell Deborah to come with me. In hindsight, boy I wish I’d told her to come. She was upset. And once she got past that, the reporter in her kinda took over. And then she’s been at everything ever since!”

Al Roker, wife Deborah, and son Nicholas

He also said that he went to work the day after getting the news and added:

“This one was kind of just a weird feeling that nobody can outwardly see anything different about me. I looked in the mirror, there was nothing outwardly different. But I knew there was something intrinsically, inherently, internally different.”

He’s scheduled to have surgery next week at New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He ended with: