Hollywood icon Amanda Peet revealed she was diagnosed with breast cancer – while both her parents were both sadly dying in hospice. The My Friends and Neighbours actress, 54, shared an emotional essay with The New Yorker that while both her mum and dad were “on opposite coasts, in hospice”, she was given the awful news that doctors had found a cancerous tumour.

Amanda was told she had Stage 1, hormone-receptor-positive (HR+), HER2-negative breast cancer, which required her to undergo a lumpectomy and radiation treatment. Tragically, Amanda’s dad died before she could say goodbye to him, as she explained: “Our mother’s [illness] had started in June, but our father’s was only a week in, so we hadn’t expected him to go first.

“I flew to New York. I didn’t make it before my father took his last breath, but I got to see his body before it was taken from his apartment.”

Her mother, meanwhile, was battling Parkinson’s disease – and Amanda decided not to tell her she was battling cancer before she died. Instead, she climbed into bed with her mum in her final moments last year.

Amanda described the “excruciating” biopsy procedure to investigate the masses found in her breasts, which involved a hollow needle and a lattice contraption to target sites on the breast. Thankfully, the second mass found by doctors proved to be benign.

The last radiation treatment caused her nipple to become “charred and blistered”, but she said the treatment “wasn’t bad” compared to the painful biopsy.

At the beginning of 2026, a scan Amanda was thankfully clear from cancer.

Her Hollywood pal Sarah Paulson has praised Amanda for her “profoundly gorgeous essay”, telling fans: “I’m screaming from the rooftops with joy. I hope you all take the time to read it.

“If you are running around and doing other stuff, I did the audio recording and you can listen to me try to do the piece justice. My friend is a New Yorker Mag essayist. How outrageously groovy is that? Bird, I love you beyond.”