Amanda Peet Says Her First Breast Cancer Sign Wasn’t a Lump, on TODAY

• Amanda Peet, 54, told TODAY on Oct. 1 that the first sign of her breast cancer “wasn’t the frozen pea that everybody talks about.” She felt a change in her skin about six months before she was diagnosed.
• She was diagnosed with stage 1 lobular breast cancer in fall 2025 and had a lumpectomy and radiation. She said it did not need chemo, and she got her first clear scan in January.
• She appeared on the show’s “Pink Power” series for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, alongside Dr. Keith Flaherty, president of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Amanda Peet said the first sign of her breast cancer was not a lump. On TODAY on Oct. 1, the actress described a skin change she felt in her closet about six months before she was diagnosed, and said it is why she tells women with dense breasts to push for extra screening.

What was Amanda Peet’s first breast cancer symptom?

Savannah Guthrie asked about the moment Peet first felt something, six months before her diagnosis. Peet said it was not a lump.

I was in my closet, I was probably putting something on, and I felt a weird — it just didn’t feel like normal skin, but it wasn’t the frozen pea that everybody talks about.

Amanda Peet, on TODAY

She said she got an MRI and was sent away, so she thought she had “a clean bill of health.” Her doctors, she said, “were actually kind of watching it.”

How was Amanda Peet diagnosed?

Six months later, Peet said, her usually chatty doctor “just went silent” and said she would walk the sample over to Cedars herself on a Friday night. “I kind of knew when she said that,” Peet said.

She was alone when the call came, her husband having taken the kids to a soccer tournament. The diagnosis, she said, was lobular cancer, which she called “more unusual.” She said it is “hard to detect because it usually doesn’t congeal into a mass.”

In an essay published in March, she wrote that for years she had been told she has “dense and busy breasts,” “not as a compliment but as a warning that they require extra monitoring.”

Her treatment was a lumpectomy and radiation, and she told TODAY she was lucky it was found early: “They often find it later when it’s already spread.”

What type of breast cancer did Amanda Peet have?

TODAY reported that she was diagnosed with stage 1, hormone-receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer in the fall of 2025. In her essay, she wrote that it appeared she was stage 1 and “wasn’t going to need chemo.” The show also reported that she got her first clear scan in January.

She received the Excellence in Cancer Awareness Award on Capitol Hill in September. She also told TODAY she had just finished shooting season 3 of Your Friends & Neighbors.

What did the doctor say about screening?

Flaherty, whom Peet said her sister had been texting through her diagnosis, said that women should start mammograms at 40 and that a family history does not change that.

Peet added that women with dense breasts should be on a six-month protocol, with extra screening that goes from ultrasound to MRI, and should check that insurance covers it.

More on cancer stories this month: Will Reeve’s cancer diagnosis, and how his wife Amanda got him to a doctor and Charles Kelley’s diagnosis. Jenna Bush Hager, who interviewed Peet on the show, is also in NBC’s Line of Fire. More in Celebrities.

— Bruno Monteiro

Sources: TODAY (NBC), Oct. 1, 2026, interview with Savannah Guthrie and the segment with Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones, quotes checked against the broadcasts’ captions; Amanda Peet, “The New Yorker” essay (March 22, 2026), as reported by ABC News; Dr. Keith Flaherty, president of the American Association for Cancer Research, on TODAY. Photos and video: TODAY and TODAY with Jenna & Sheinelle (NBC), Your Friends & Neighbors (Apple TV), The Drew Barrymore Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, The View (ABC) and Late Night with Seth Meyers (NBC) official channels.