'I'm Getting Stronger Every Day

As Her Mom Was Fighting Brain Cancer, the Tv Host Was Diagnosed With a Brain Tumor Herself. Now Recovering From Surgery, She Feels a Stronger Connection to Family and Faith Than Ever Before.

- Julie Jordan

As her mother, Litsa, was suffering from stage 4 brain cancer, Maria Menounos says she prayed, “God, I wish you just gave this to me. I have the fight; I have the will. I wish it was me.” Early this year the E! TV and SiriusXM radio host and author started experiencing headaches and dizziness—and then an MRI revealed she had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball, wrapped precariously around her facial nerves. On June 8—her 39th birthday— Menounos underwent a complex seven-hour surgery by Dr. Keith L. Black, a neurosurgeon at L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai hospital. The tumor—a benign meningioma—was successfully removed but could possibly return. Menounos is recovering well, though still dealing with numbness and balance issues that will take at least a month to heal. She’s leaning on her fiancé, Keven Undergaro, 51, and parents (her mom’s tumor has shrunk recently)—and she’s grateful for how the ordeal has brought them closer and led her to rethink her work-focused life. “This was a blessing,” she says. “A lot of beautiful things have come from this.”

My mom had been complaining that she was really tired. We thought maybe she had Lyme disease because they live in Connecticut half the year and with us half the year, but she got tested and nothing. Then one Saturday morning [last August], she called me and said, “We are going to the hospital. My speech went slurred, and the water spilled out of my mouth.” It sounded like a little stroke. The doctors said, “You have stage 4 glioblastoma”—it was brain cancer and the worst kind. And my mom was like, “Okay.” No tears, no drama.