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Samantha Harris Has Breast Cancer: Entertainment Tonight Star to Have Double Mastectomy

Samantha Harris
Entertainment Tonight correspondent Samantha Harris has revealed that she has breast cancer, and will be undergoing a double mastectomy

She's ready to fight. Samantha Harris has revealed that she has breast cancer. The Entertainment Tonight correspondent opened up about first learning her diagnosis, and how she will undergo a double mastectomy, on Wednesday, April 9.

Related: PHOTOS: Stars who beat cancer

"The realization sort of overtook me, my eyes started to well up from tears when I was trying to keep myself calm because I thought the most important thing — was that I needed to focus and listen to what they were saying," Harris, 40, told ET's Brooke Anderson. "I went back for the results of the pathology and I was by myself because there was nothing to worry about or so I thought."

"It's not like in the movies where they sit you down across a table in their office and say, 'Well, you have cancer,'" she explained. "It was these wonderful surgeons [who] started drawing diagrams and talking as I was on the exam table listening to what they were saying, it dawned on me without them coming right out to say it."

The former Dancing With the Stars co-host has two daughters with husband Michael Hess, to whom she's been married since 2005. After being diagnosed, she soon realized that she needed to "take control" of the situation for the sake of her family.

"My daughters are three and six. All they're concerned about is to have mommy active, [to] be able to hold them, hug them, kiss them, be there, be present for everything," she said. "Having lost my dad when he was just 50, I was lucky because I was 22 and I'd had him through my whole adolescence." 

Related: PHOTOS: Best-dressed TV hosts

"No matter how positive of a diagnosis as I have, it doesn't keep the demons of fear from taking over your mind and your thought process and thinking about the girls and thinking about [how] my dad wasn't able to walk me down the aisle," she added. "I will be here to plan my daughters weddings and they better like the dress I pick."

Shortly after announcing the news, Harris took to Twitter to thank those who've reached out. "Thks for the well wishes, kindness & support," she wrote. "It means so much to me & my family! It's a tough road but I'm here to stand up & fight cancer."

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