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Actress Amanda Peet has revealed that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer – in an essay she wrote about the death of her parents.
In “My Season of Ativan,” published Saturday in The New Yorker, Peet describes how she received her diagnosis just before Labor Day last year, at a time when both parents were in hospice care on opposite coasts.
“I have been told for many years that I have ‘dense’ and ‘active’ breasts – not as a compliment, but as a warning that they need to be monitored closely,” Peet wrote. “I went to a breast surgeon every six months for checkups. The Friday before Labor Day, I went in for what I thought was a routine scan. Dr. K. usually chatted with me while she examined me – this time she was silent. She told me there was something she didn’t like about the ultrasound and wanted to do a biopsy. After the procedure, she said she would personally take the sample to Cedars-Sinai and hand it straight to pathology. That’s when I knew.”
Diagnosis comes in waves
Peet wrote that an initial test revealed a small tumor, which required an MRI and further testing to determine her receptor status. The results showed that the “Your Friends & Neighbors” actress was hormone receptor positive and HER2 negative – both more favorable conditions for treatment.
“You would have thought I had just taken ecstasy,” Peet wrote. “I was happier than before the diagnosis, when I was a normal person without cancer. But after about ten minutes I remembered that I still needed the MRI and I fell back into pure panic… I realized: A cancer diagnosis comes in small doses.”
The subsequent MRI revealed a second mass in the same breast, leading to a “torturous” biopsy. “When I left, the doctor told me it was 50-50 whether there was more cancer,” Peet wrote.
Lumpectomy instead of mastectomy
Luckily, it turned out, “Two days later we learned that the second mass was benign and I would only need a lumpectomy and radiation, not a double mastectomy or chemotherapy,” Peet wrote, adding that it was stage I.
After her radiotherapy, a scan in January this year no longer showed any findings; Shortly thereafter, Peet began organizing her mother’s funeral. Her father died in 2025 during the cancer drama. “Once my father’s body was out of sight, I was free to deal with my own panic about cancer,” Peet wrote.
