The “Today” host and actress opened up about their respective journeys following Peet’s recent essay about discovering she had the disease.

Amanda Peet and Hoda Kotb connect over their breast cancer diagnoses in moving new interview

The "Today" host and actress opened up about their respective journeys following Peet's recent essay about discovering she had the disease.

By Leigh Blickley

March 26, 2026 12:26 p.m. ET

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Hoda Kotb and Amanda Peet on 'Today'. Credit:

Hoda Kotb is hoping to strike up a friendship with Amanda Peet after they connected over their breast cancer journeys.

The women, alongside cohost Craig Melvin, discussed Peet's new projects, *Fantasy Life* and *Your* *Friends & Neighbors*, on Thursday's episode of *Today*, but the most moving moments in the interview dealt with their experiences with the disease.

Peet, 54, revealed her diagnosis in a touching essay for *The New Yorker* on March 21, detailing how she learned she had stage 1 cancer while both of her parents were in hospice.

"You know, I didn't really have an agenda,” Peet said on *Today* when asked why she decided to share the news publicly. "Maybe it was a way to just kind of cope and contain what was insanity — this kind of intersection of all of these big life moments."

Peet, who shares three children with her husband, David Benioff, was given the treatment plan of a lumpectomy and radiation for hormone-receptor-positive and HER2-negative breast cancer.

Amanda Peet at the Apple TV Press Day in Los Angeles in February 2026.

Earl Gibson III/Deadline via Getty

Kotb then addressed her own breast cancer diagnosis in 2007, telling Peet, "When you hear the words 'breast cancer,' and I mean it happened to me a while ago, but I do know the feeling of hearing the words. But now I feel like it's sort of different — you know, that there is a clear path forward."

"I was extremely lucky," Peet said of her less aggressive form of cancer. "And obviously I have great health insurance because of SAG, and my husband and I have a nanny, so there were a lot of people around to take care of me, but not everybody has that. So I've also been giving that a lot of thought."

She added that her cancer is still "really worrisome," as it's lobular, which is "understudied."

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"So we need more research, and I think that's going to be a critical thing as we go forward," Peet explained.

Lobular breast cancer, or invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC), originates in the lobules, the milk-producing glands in the breast, according to the American Cancer Society. In an October 2025 release, researchers cited a critical need for more studies of this unique breast cancer subtype, as cases are rising among women.

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At the time of her diagnosis at age 43, Kotb, now 61, discovered lumps during a routine exam and underwent a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. She is now cancer-free.

Before saying goodbye to Peet during the *Today* segment, Kotb told the actress, "You're such a lovely person. Like, I feel like I want to be friends with you right now while you're talking."

"I want to be friends with you, too," Peet responded.

Replied Kotb, "It's happening here."

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Source: “EW Celebrity”