Maria Menounos reveals new details about brain tumor battle in Women’s Health cover story

Medford native Maria Menounos underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor the size of a golf ball in June 2017. The TV personality, who posed for the January/February cover of Women’s Health, shared new details with the publication about her initial diagnosis and her life post-surgery.

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Menounos said that prior to her diagnosis, she wasn’t engaging in enough self-care.

“Before the brain tumor, I was super Type A,” Menounos told Women’s Health. “I was on top of everything. I would know when your birthday was and make sure you had your flowers. I was everything to everyone, but nothing to myself. I didn’t know it at the time, but there was no self-compassion, no self-love.”

Menounos said that, while she began rearranging her life when her mother was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2016, she still didn’t focus on her own health issues right away: She hadn’t had a primary care physician in “eight or nine years,” and she delayed the MRI that found her brain tumor “at least three times.”

“We’re so empathetic with everyone except ourselves,” Menounos told Women’s Health. “You see a sick person who’s family, a friend, a colleague, and you say, ‘How can I help you?’ But if it’s you, it’s, ‘I don’t have time for you, illness!’ My symptoms got so bad, though, that I had to deal with it.”

Echoing what she said in an interview with NBC’s Megyn Kelly that aired in July 2017, Menounos said that the brain tumor was the wake-up call she needed to stop working 20-hour days and focus on herself, her family, and her friends.

“Would you believe me if I told you that the brain tumor is the best thing that ever happened to me?” Menounos told Women’s Health. “It’s freed me from all of that anxiety of having to be perfect. You can’t control everything; leave it to God and just say, ‘Okay, this is my journey.’ ”