Nicole Eggert, who shot to fame with Pamela Anderson on Baywatch, has revealed she underwent a mastectomy as she battles breast cancer.
The 53-year-old actress was diagnosed with her illness in December 2023, two months after she started suffering from ‘terrible pain’ in her left breast.
Early in October 2024, she disclosed that she had undergone a single mastectomy ‘six days’ prior, on Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes’ podcast.
She had wanted a double mastectomy at that time, but her doctor advised her to ‘do the single’ instead because it would keep her ‘immune system up higher than if we take both’ and would thus enable her to get ‘back into treatment’ faster.
This Thursday, she shared that she has had another mastectomy, as well as a reconstruction by Orange County plastic surgeon Dr. Kyle Song.
Nicole broke the news to her fans alongside a selfie that showed her posing in a sports bra and a pair of panties, presumably in the days after the operation.
Nicole Eggert, who shot to fame with Pamela Anderson on Baywatch, has revealed she underwent a mastectomy as she battles breast cancer
‘Had a mastectomy with reconstruction on Thursday. How was ur weekend? #breastcancer #breastcancerawarness #feelyourselfup,’ she wrote.
She began experiencing ‘terrible pain’ in her left breast in October 2023, having gained 25lbs over the course of three months.
At first she attributed her symptoms to menopause, but when she performed a self-check and felt a lump, she ‘immediately’ called her doctor.
After a mammogram and three biopsies, she finally received her official diagnosis that December – stage 2 cribriform carcinoma breast cancer.
Nicole observed that ‘the problem was I just couldn’t get an appointment. Everything was booked. So I had to wait until the end of November to get it done,’ via People.
In February 2024, she disclosed that more cancer had been discovered in her lymph nodes and expressed regret that she did not check her breasts herself earlier.
‘The self-exams, I’m telling you, I kick myself. That’s the one thing I should have been doing,’ she said during an interview on Inside Edition.
Nicole recalled that when she received her diagnosis, her ‘heart dropped, I lost all hearing, everything sank. It’s named invasive cribriform carcinoma. It’s very rare.’
Nicole is pictured in the early 1990s in a publicity shot for Baywatch, which made her a household name in the role of Roberta ‘Summer’ Quinn
(from left) Pamela Anderson, Alexandra Paul, Gregory Alan-Williams, David Hasselhoff, David Charvet, Nicole and Jeremy Jackson are pictured in a publicity still for Baywatch
The 53-year-old actress was diagnosed with her illness in December 2023, two months after she noticed the pain in her left breast; pictured this March
She noted that any anomalies in her breasts were more difficult to find because of tissue from the implants she got at the age of 19.
Nicole, who went on Botched a decade ago to obtain a breast reduction, described her original implants as a ‘huge mistake’ in her February interview.
‘If I didn’t have them and I had my smaller, natural breasts, I am sure I would have felt it much sooner,’ the California native theorized.
During her interview last February, Nicole divulged that her ‘biggest fear’ was to no longer be there for her daughters Dilyn, 27, and Keegan, 14.
Nicole offered more details about the progress of her cancer battle when she appeared on the Amy and T.J. podcast early last October.
‘I did eight months of treatment. I just had a mastectomy six days ago and I will go back on treatment,’ the mother-of-two explained.
She said her doctor told her: ‘I know you want the double but we also need to get you back into treatment. So let’s do the single — it will keep your immune system up higher than if we take both. You’ll be able to get into treatment quicker, we have less chance of infection and a quicker healing time.’
Nicole told T.J. and Amy that she had the option to request a double mastectomy, but that her doctor advised her: ‘You can do both, and then we find out later it traveled, and we didn’t get to it in time and it’s growing. So you don’t want to be hasty. You want to be careful. You have to go with your gut.’
