Constance Zimmer Reveals Secret Stage 0 Breast Cancer Battle

Constance Zimmer has revealed that she was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year and kept the news private while promoting FX’s “Love Story.” The 55-year-old actor shared the story in an Instagram post on Sunday, Oct. 4, and said she is now cancer-free, Us Weekly and Page Six reported.

“October is #breastcancerawarenessmonth and I never thought I’d be honoring it with my own story,” Zimmer wrote. She said that on March 13, while she was away from home, a doctor told her over Zoom: “You have DCIS, also [referred] to as Stage 0 breast cancer.” She added, “The silence was deafening.” DCIS stands for ductal carcinoma in situ.

According to Us Weekly, Zimmer described being “surrounded by women sharing their secrets about their Midlife truths” while “holding onto the biggest secret I’d ever held.” She wrote that she first had to call her husband and then get home to tell their daughter in person. Us Weekly notes that Zimmer shares her daughter, Colette, with Russ Lamoureux.

The weeks after the diagnosis were hard. Zimmer wrote that the mental toll was “overwhelming on certain days” as she spoke with more doctors than she would have liked. “Feeling like my options were limited and most suggested what was the quickest way to get this mass out ASAP, which was a mastectomy,” she wrote, per Us Weekly. “What if that’s not what I want? What if I want to save my boob instead?”

She said breast surgeon Dr. Kristi Funk told her, “I think we can try a lumpectomy, I feel confident I can get it out,” and called her “the first doctor to make me feel like what I wanted mattered.” Page Six explains that a lumpectomy is a breast-conserving surgery that removes a tumor and a small rim of healthy tissue while keeping most of the breast intact. “It did take 3 surgeries – 3 weeks in a row, but she did it, she saved my breast and it looks good too!” Zimmer wrote.

All of this happened while she was in the public eye. “During all of this I was out on a very public press tour for ‘Love Story,’ while keeping my diagnosis and treatment private,” she wrote. “I then followed my surgeries with radiation, while celebrating my Emmy Nomination.” In the FX series about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Zimmer played Bessette-Kennedy’s mother, Ann Marie Messina. Us Weekly reported that the post included hospital photos and a clip marking one week of radiation, in which she called the moment “super surreal” and said she was “just breathing through it literally and figuratively.”

Zimmer said she and her “Talk Fifty to Me” podcast partner, who posts as @welcometoheidi, invited her breast surgeon onto the show because talking about it can remind women “to please not wait until you have symptoms to get yourself checked in all ways possible.” She said the full episode would be out on Oct. 6. “I’m grateful to be CANCER FREE,” she wrote, closing with: “From hospital gowns to Emmy glamour this was one hell of a ride.” More celebrity headlines are on our Daily News page.

Verification: Zimmer’s quotes, the March 13 diagnosis date, the three surgeries, the radiation treatment and the podcast date come from her Instagram post as reported by Us Weekly (Oct. 4) and Page Six (Oct. 5).