“Today” co-host Al Roker thanked fans and well-wishers over the weekend for their support after he revealed Friday that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Roker, 66, posted a video on Instagram Saturday expressing gratitude to those who have reached out to him.
“I got to thank each and every one of you for your prayers, your support, your well-wishes after I announced on Friday that I’m battling prostate cancer,” Roker said in the video. “And with any luck, next week I’m going to be having prostate cancer surgery. And I’m going to tell prostate cancer, to borrow a phrase, ‘you’re fired.’”
In alerting America and his “Today” co-workers Friday about his diagnosis, he said he will undergo surgery to have his prostate removed.
Roker said that he went public to call attention to the fact that 1 in 7 Black men and 1 in 9 men overall will also receive such a diagnosis in their lifetime.
“It’s a good news-bad news kind of thing,” Roker said Friday of his diagnosis. “Good news is we caught it early. Not great news is that it’s a little aggressive, so I’m going to be taking some time off to take care of this. We’ll just wait and see, and hopefully, in about two weeks, I’ll be back [on “Today”].”
