‘Dancing With The Stars’ Host Erin Andrews Opens Up About Her Battle With Cervical Cancer

“Dancing With the Stars” host Erin Andrews is always bubbly on television, so no one would’ve guessed that she has been battling cervical cancer for half a year now.

In an interview with MMQB.com, Andrews shared that she was diagnosed in September 2016 after undergoing a routine check-up in June. She received a call from her doctor while she was busy attending a meeting and was shocked to hear the news. “When you hear the word cancer, you fear the worst,” she said.

Her dad, Steve, also opened up about Andrews’ condition to say that he asked God to take him instead of her. “She has been through enough. She is just getting her life back,” he said.

Last year, Andrews filed a lawsuit against her stalker, Michael David Barrett, who followed her to her hotel rooms and recorded nude footage of the ABC host. Barrett went to jail, and Andrews settled the lawsuit she filed against the hotel operator. She was rewarded $55 million in March of last year, according to the New York Post.

Meanwhile, even though Andrews was surprised to hear the C-word from her doctor, she shared that she was back on the grind 48 hours after her surgery. “Should I have been standing for a full game five days after surgery? Let’s just say the doctors didn’t recommend that. But as I felt during my trial, sports were my escape. I needed to be with my crew,” she said.

Despite her recent obstacles, Andrews finally come to terms with the fact that she’s strong. A lot of people have told her this, but she didn’t want to believe them. “After the trial, everyone kept telling me, ‘You’re so strong, for going through all of this, for holding down a job in football, for being the only woman on the crew. Finally I got to the point where I believed it too,” she said.