Al Roker is set to undergo surgery to remove his prostate.
On Friday, Nov. 6, the beloved Today weatherman revealed that he’s been diagnosed with prostate cancer following a routine checkup in September. “It’s a good news-bad news kind of thing,” he shared. “Good news is we caught it early. Not great news is that it’s a little aggressive, so I’m going to be taking some time off to take care of this.”
“It’s one of those things that it’s a little more common than people realize,” the 66-year-old continued. “I just decided that I wanted to go public with this because one in nine men are gonna be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. But for African American men, that number is one in seven, and is more deadly.”
He also noted that, if detected early, this “is a really treatable disease.”
Reflecting on the moment he received the diagnosis, Roker, who began his career on Today in the ’90s, said, “When he started, he closed his door and said, ‘I always like to have these discussions face to face.’ And I was like, ‘Uh-oh. Well, that doesn’t sound good.'”
