Julia Louis-Dreyfus opens up about beating cancer
On his fourth show from Brooklyn, Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday night welcomed multiple Emmy winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus in a triumphant appearance following her successful treatment for breast cancer.
"I'm really good, I'm not just saying that," she said to cheers, before saying with a laugh, "Let's get this cancer s--- out of the way, bring on the questions."
"Did you beat the breast cancer?" Kimmel asked, to which Louis-Dreyfus answered enthusiastically, "Yes!"
Fans were stunned when the "Seinfeld" vet and "Veep" star, 57, revealed she had cancer. She explained why she went public with her battle.
"Well, I did it for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, we had to stall 'Veep' production because of my situation -- a lot of people work for me, and I knew I couldn't really keep it private because I had to tell everybody what was going on," she said.
She continued, "And then I just sort of embraced that and I got a lot of positive feedback. I think people liked having the fact that I had a sense of humor about it. And also I think it's an important conversation to have about health and health care."
As she's done in the past, Louis-Dreyfus connected her fight against cancer with the fight for health insurance for all -- which dovetailed into Kimmel's very public battle over health care when his newborn son needed heart surgery.
Louis-Dreyfus also admitted to being nervous about giving a speech after she receives the Mark Twain prize for comedy this weekend.
"They're giving you an award for being comedic, and now they're saying, at the same time, now prove that you deserve it with this speech," she said.
