Colleen Hoover detailed some of the symptoms she experienced before receiving her cancer diagnosis.
“Well, I passed out a couple of times,” Hoover, 46, said on Jenna Bush Hager’s “Open Book With Jenna” podcast on Thursday, March 5. “I was just not feeling myself. It took a little bit of time to get the diagnosis.”
The It Ends With Us author specifically referenced a moment on a set in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and “knew something was wrong.”
Once Hoover received her diagnosis, she “had to have a couple of surgeries, but then everything was OK.” (Hoover did not specify what type of cancer she was diagnosed with.)
“It was almost like I went into it thinking it’s gonna be OK,” she said. “I never really looked at it as like a sentence or doom.”
Hoover initially kept her diagnosis private, only telling close family, explaining, “The last thing I wanted was for it to be all over the internet.” Toward the end of her treatment, she decided to post about her diagnosis on social media in December 2025.
“I honestly felt like if you’re gonna have cancer, I had it pretty easy, so I didn’t wanna talk about it because of that,” she explained. “And I actually got an email from a news outlet that had found out through someone else, and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh. It’s gonna be out there.’ So I just tried to make light of it and made a funny post and stories and really didn’t put a lot of focus on it.”
Hoover praised her loved ones for supporting her throughout her cancer journey.
“I just have the best support system. And then the recovery was quick. I got very lucky,” she said.
Following her bout with cancer, Hoover declared 2026 is her “year of health.”
“I get a lot of sleep. I make sure of that,” she told Bush Hager, 44, of lifestyle changes she’s made to prioritize health and wellness this year.
Hoover continued, “Now I realize how much better I function if I make sure I get those eight hours every night. And so that has been my priority now.”
The Reminders of Him producer said she is also staying on top of her doctor’s visits.
“I definitely have been making all the doctors’ appointments, getting everything checked, getting my mammogram, my colonoscopy,” she shared. “Everyone needs to do that. Things that they don’t really recommend at this age, I’m already doing.”
Colleen credited her husband, William Heath Hoover, for inspiring her to continue her health journey.
“He runs every day. He makes sure we have a healthy dinner. He’s really the one that’s kind of kicking me into gear,” she reflected.
Hoover first publicly revealed her cancer battle in a message to her Facebook group last year. In January, she marked her second to last day of radiation, writing via her Instagram Stories, “I wish I could blame my hair and facial expressions on @texas.oncology, but they’ve been pretty great. Hope you never need them, but highly recommend them.”
Shortly after, Hoover addressed the media attention her diagnosis received.
“Just clarification because of some misleading clickbait making it sound like I’m on my deathbed or something, but I do not have cancer anymore,” she wrote via Facebook at the time. “I was diagnosed sometime last year, had surgery that was successful, just finished radiation yesterday. I am done and good and all is well and has been well. My doctors doctored. Hell yeah.”
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