Forgetting Breast Cancer

< PORTRAIT // GiULIANA RANCIC

Forgetting Breast Cancer E! News co-host Giuliana Rancic, who comes to Boca Raton this month to speak at the Go Pink Luncheon, shares how she seized an “I-forgot-I-have-cancer” mentality.

By Jennifer Tormo

he only had 45 minutes to process the news. Giuliana Rancic expected to be in and out of the 10 a.m. doctor’s appoint- Sment. When her doctor’s mouth opened, she never expected to hear the words he said. “I’m sorry. You have breast cancer.” She was blindsided. She had no family history; she was only 36 – where had this come from? It was like she’d been kicked in the stomach. But there was no time to grieve. She had two choices: She could go to work, or she could go home and cry. She chose work. “No one knew. Not a soul knew,” she says. She had one focus: keeping it together. But there was Giuliana Rancic would have plenty of Kleenex on hand so an added challenge. She wasn’t just keeping it together for and husband Bill my makeup wouldn’t get messed up.” her co-workers. She was keeping it together for the camera, come to Boca Speaking to her today, about a year keeping it together for the 97 million viewers E! reaches Raton to discuss after that fateful diagnosis, it seems easy nationally, keeping it together as she dished the latest gos- breast cancer for Rancic to talk about crying. It’s a sip on celebrity fashion, breakups and makeups. awareness. testament to her strength that she is so “We still have that footage of when I came and an- unafraid to make herself vulnerable. The 5-foot-8 Italian- chored with Ryan [Seacrest] that day,” she says. “People American gushes emotion, making grand hand gestures were like, God, you were spunkier than usual.” when she speaks, her long bronze-colored hair staying But that’s Rancic’s way – when she’s sad, she goes out perfectly in place as the rest of her moves to the tune of of her way to appear happy. She coped privately. Between her words. Even her Twitter page is punctuated with ex- commercial breaks, she’d excuse herself to the rest room. clamation points, emoticons and words written in caps for “I would say, ‘oh, my shoes hurt. I need to go get a differ- emphasis; you can almost hear her voice as you read her ent pair of shoes.’ I would go to the bathroom and cry. I posts. (A tweet to her husband, Bill, reads, “Love u babe:).”

28 OCTOBER 2012 gulfstreammediagroup.com “Good luck!!!!! Sending u love:),” reads another, this one August 2011, her new doctor insisted she get a mammo- to a friend in New York undergoing IVF treatments.) gram. Rancic protested. She was only 36 – why would she And maybe it’s part of being a journalist – maybe be- need a mammogram? Her doctor told her he didn’t care if ing an interviewer who knows to get all the details taught she was 26 or 46, because the hormones during pregnancy her how to be interviewed too – but when Rancic tells a would accelerate breast cancer if it were present. Reluctant- story, she tells the whole story. She never lets anyone for- ly, she complied. get that the story of how she discovered her breast cancer After she had time to process her diagnosis, everything really starts with another story: a nearly three-year-long came together. “It’s amazing looking back, how life works. battle to have a baby. There really is a master plan,” she says. The doctors never The mammogram had been simple protocol. When could explain to her why she couldn’t get pregnant. But if she went for her third round of in vitro fertilization in she had gotten pregnant, the cancer likely would’ve been much further along, instead of in its earliest stages. And though she would now be forced to put it on hold, Rancic felt that the difficult quest to have a baby had, ironi- cally, saved her life. Another thing began to make sense to Rancic. Though she had worked at E! for more than 10 years, some days she still had the sense of, “Why me?” As a young immigrant from Naples, Italy, she taught herself English by watching the news. When she got a job at E! she was barely 26, and the humble Rancic never thought she was the prettiest, the smartest or the most talented person who auditioned. More than a decade later, what previously had felt like an incred- ible blessing made sense: Being on the public stage was her chance to help people, to spread the message to women about early detection. Maybe people would believe if it could happen to her, it could happen to them, too. Rancic and Bill decided to take the news public. Accustomed to asking celebrities about their personal lives for a living, she allowed the tables to turn. She went on the “TODAY Show” and made an an- nouncement. “I’ll never forget the day she “It’s amazing looking went on the ‘TODAY Show’ because I was sitting off to the side back, how life works. watching and thought, wow, she There really is a has no idea what she’s doing right master plan.” now,” Bill says, already imagining looking back on the moment five

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or 10 years down the road. “I was so proud of her.” Days after the appearance, she had a double lumpectomy to remove the lumps, followed by radiation, and less than two months later in Decem- ber, she underwent a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. None of it was kept secret. But that’s not really a surprise. Even today, Rancic doesn’t sugarcoat or hide anything; she answers every question honestly. She never stumbles, never uses place- holder words like “um,” never even has to think when answering a question – the answer just comes. The Rancics have always been open about their lives, right down to their extremely personal struggle with fertility, sharing every detail in their reality show “Giuliana & Bill.” “When we started the ‘Giuli- ana & Bill’ show, we made a prom- ise that we would use this show for good and not evil. That’s what we’ve done,” explains Bill, the 41-year-old entrepreneur, Chicago real estate de- veloper, TV producer and first sea- son winner of “The Apprentice.” While his wife worked through the The Rancics come to Boca emotions of a cancer diagnosis, he dealt with the logistics in a pen- to-paper, methodical way. iuliana and Bill Rancic are devoting Octo- “He came up with lists and pros and cons of things, assembled a ber to speaking out as much as possible team of doctors, helped me get the help I really needed, which I just Gon breast cancer awareness and will wasn’t really capable of doing,” Rancic says. “It was very natural for share their story at Boca Raton Regional Hospital me to just kind of want to curl up in bed and hide under the covers Foundation’s 9th Annual Go Pink Luncheon on and not deal with it and just cry.” Oct. 26. The event will take place at Boca Raton But if hiding under the covers was what she wanted to do, what Resort & Club from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tickets she actually did was the exact opposite. Two weeks after her double are $150. In addition to speaking, she’ll model a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, she was back at work. “I one-of-a-kind Gurhan necklace with a retail value found that filling my days with things I used to do before the diagnosis, I felt like the girl I was before I was diagnosed,” she explains. of $25,000, donated by Saks Fifth Avenue. Ran- “Oops, I forgot I have cancer.” cic will auction the necklace off during the event. Her motto is get busy living or get busy dying, and she’s busy More than 1,400 people are expected to living. A year after her diagnosis, she’s healthy and has a new restau- attend the breast cancer awareness luncheon, rant opening in Chicago (it’s her second, both co-owned with Bill), which benefits the Foundation’s Go Pink Chal- is co-hosting with Bill a new NBC show later this year called “Ready lenge to raises awareness and funds for the local for Love,” and continuing work on her FabFitFun health website. Christine E. Lynn Women’s Health & Wellness In- The Rancics, currently in Chicago, are also excited to relocate to a stitute. Last year’s keynote speaker was “Sex and new home in Los Angeles. the City” star Kristin Davis, who discussed getting And the Rancic family added another line on its family tree – a mammogram when she found out her former a baby boy, Edward Duke, born via gestational surrogate in late co-star Cynthia Nixon had breast cancer. August. The child gives a new definition to “miracle baby” – For more info, call 561.955.4142. Rancic will forever look at the son she’s waited for as the child who saved her life.

30 OCTOBER 2012 gulfstreammediagroup.com