Amanda Peet opens up about the 'hard part' of telling her kids about breast cancer diagnosis

Derek LawrenceWed, March 25, 2026 at 4:48 PM UTC

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Amanda Peet in 2025Credit: Dominik Bindl/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty

Amanda Peet is sharing how she handled telling her children about her breast cancer diagnosis.

The Your Friends & Neighbors star recently revealed her health scare in an emotional and vulnerable essay for The New Yorker. Peet is now opening up about how she went about delivering the news to the daughters and son she shares with husband and Game of Thrones co-creator David Benioff.

"They've been great," she told E! News. "I think what changes when your kids become adults is that you probably share earlier when there's more uncertainty. And so I definitely had to get myself together before including them. But the hard part was realizing that nothing is certain, and there was going to be no perfect time to tell them.”

David Benioff and Amanda Peet attend the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscar party.Credit: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

In her essay, Peet wrote that she'd long been told that she had "'dense' and 'busy' breasts — not as a compliment but as a warning that they require extra monitoring." Seeing her doctor in August 2025 as part of her regular checkups, Peet underwent a biopsy and learned that she had a tumor. That same weekend, Peet's father died, and she flew to New York to be with her family.

"I didn't make it before my father took his last breath, but I got to see his body before it was taken from his apartment," she wrote. "As soon as my dad's corpse was out of sight, I was free to panic about my cancer again."

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Peet decided against telling her mother — who was in the final stages of her battle with Parkinson's disease — about either her diagnosis or her father's death.

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An MRI soon found a second tumor, and a procedure eventually showed that it was benign, meaning Peet wouldn't require chemotherapy or a mastectomy, rather a lumpectomy and radiation.

Peet received her first clear scan in January, just before her mother passed away. "I wasn't sure whether my mom knew that she was looking at me or whether I was just a constellation of interesting, disembodied shapes," Peet recalled of their final moments together. "I realized that she was communing without words, and I followed suit. Time was running out, and, besides, I had already told her everything."

on Entertainment Weekly

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