Harry Connick Jr. sat down with his wife, Jill Goodacre, on his show Harry for a revealing interview about her breast cancer diagnosis, which she called the “greatest shock” of her life.
“About five years ago, we ran into a little trouble. Do you remember that day?” the TV host, 50, asked his wife in the episode that aired on Thursday, October 26. “I’ll never forget it. It was one of the hardest days of my life,” the actress said. “Exactly five years ago this month I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Exactly five years ago and it was just so ironic, it was Breast Cancer Awareness Month.”
The former model, 53, was diagnosed when she went in for a routine yearly checkup. “I thought I would just run out of there and go to lunch with my friends, like a regular mammogram. And I did the mammogram and they said, ‘Everything looks great,’” she recalled. “Then I was headed into my sonogram and they came back in and said, ‘Something looks a little funny.’”
Goodacre recalls getting the phone call from her doctors telling her about her cancer diagnosis and the first person she dialed was her husband, who was away working in New Orleans at the time. “I remember what you said to me. I was working down there and I was waiting for the call and you were crying and you said, ‘I have it,’ and I lost it,” the tv host said. “It was the worst feeling of helplessness I’ve ever had.”
The pair have been married since 1994 and share three daughters: Charlotte, 15, Georgia, 21, and Sarah, 20 — and Goodacre says telling them the news was the hardest part. “That was the worst of all. Having the girls sit on my bed and telling them, they were so in shock, it was just devastating,” she said. “They cling more to me more now and it’s just really sweet. They’ve been so supportive, just amazing.”
The mom of three didn’t have to go through chemotherapy due to early detection, but the couple said the past half-decade has been the toughest — especially since the Will & Grace actor’s mother died from cancer, which brought up sad memories from his childhood. “You were probably stronger than I was, I think,” the actor told his wife. “I think you set the tone for how we were going to deal with it.”
“I am so in awe of your bravery,” he added.
