Al Roker, an NBC weatherman, announced today that he is battling prostate cancer. He announced live on the air that he will be okay.
What We Know:
- Al Roker is 66 and a weatherman for NBC. He stated that “It’s a good news-bad news kind of thing,” and he will be having surgery next week. One in nine men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetimes and it mostly affects African American men.
- Al Roker started his career back in the 1970s when he worked for WHEN-TV, which is a CBS affiliate. He was also a weathercast for WTTG, an independent station, and later worked at WKYC-TV in Cleveland. Roker even hosted his own weekend television show called The Al Roker Show in 1995.
- According to WBALTV, he was diagnosed on September 29th when he went to the doctor for his regular physical. He went to the appointment alone and to confirm his diagnosis, Roker had a biopsy and an MRI just to be sure.
- Roker went on to offer an optimistic outlook to his co-hosts and viewers, saying, “If detected early, this is a really treatable disease.” He will be taking some time off to have his prostate removed and he hopes to be back working before the end of the year.
- Some other health issues and conditions he has faced in his lifetime are obesity, knee surgery, and incontinence. In 2002, he had gastric bypass surgery due to him being overweight and weighing in at 340 pounds while his wife was much smaller than him. Back in 2018, he was told to retire because he collapsed during an outdoor appearance by Aerosmith on NBC’s Today.
This story is breaking and being updated. We hope and pray that he will be back to his normal self after having surgery.
