KEY POINTS

  • Jeanette Lee has been given less than a year to live due to cancer
  • The billiards female icon is set to undergo several medical procedures
  • Her scoliosis may have prevented doctors from detecting the genetic disease

Jeanette Lee, one of the polarizing figures in billiards, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

The 49-year-old allegedly has less than a year to live in a shocking revelation.

The status of the “Black Widow” was revealed in a GoFundMe page where it was stated that Lee had been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. The cancer had metastasized into her lymph nodes and that the prognosis was dire. The family further added that the Billiards icon has a few months to a year to live.

Despite the discovery, she is not giving up without a fight, the same attitude she carried each time she competed in billiard tournaments.

"I intend to bring the same resolve I brought to the billiards table to this fight," Lee said to the American Poolplayers Association. "Jim Valvano so eloquently told us to ‘Never give up.' I owe it to my three young daughters to do exactly that."

Lee is one of the popular and feared pool players from the 1990s. She is best known as one of the game’s most dominant cue artists, a reason why she was christened the “Black Widow.”

She was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in 2013 and stopped playing in 2013 because of the effects of scoliosis. It was stated on the GoFundMe page that this could have masked the pain from cancer, allowing it to progress undetected.

From here, all Lee can do is slow the cancer from progressing. She is set to undergo multiple surgeries in the coming weeks and months, TMZ reported.

Lee is a single mother with three kids. Funds that would be collected will go to a trust, Jeanette Lee Legacy Fund as it will ensure her kids will go to college.

World champion pool player and philanthropist Jeanette Lee aka "The Black Widow"
World champion pool player and philanthropist Jeanette Lee aka "The Black Widow" Getty Images | Johnny Nunez/WireImage

Lee has won multiple competitions, including three WPBA Classic Tour events, the U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship and the WPBA Nationals. She was named Player of the Year from Billiards Digest and Pool & Billiard Magazine for those conquests.

But “The Black Widow’s” charge did not end there. Her last series of wins came in 2007 where she copped the International Skins Billiard Championship, Skins Billiards, World Team Cup and Empress Cup.

Lee was also part of the 2007 Pool & Billiard Magazine Fans' Top 20 Favorite Players.

RELATED STORIES