Maria Menounos kept quiet about her pancreatic cancer journey during conversations with her baby’s surrogate.
The entertainment journalist admitted to “Access Hollywood” Wednesday that the gestational carrier did not find out about her diagnosis and recovery until shortly before the rest of the world.
“She’s carrying my baby,” Menounos, 44, explained. “I wasn’t gonna let her worry whether I was gonna be there or not.”
Instead, the former “E! News” anchor came clean to the surrogate and the woman’s husband two days before publicly sharing the news.
By the time Menounos revealed her secret pancreatic cancer in a People interview earlier this month, she had a clean bill of health.
Her announcement came three months after she and her husband, Keven Undergaro, told the world that they are expecting a baby girl following a decade of fertility struggles.
The TV host called her subsequent health scare a “cruel joke” in Wednesday’s emotional conversation with the outlet, tearing up.
“How much more can I take?” she said, referencing her recent type 1 diabetes diagnosis and 2017 brain tumor removal. “I was like, ‘How could you finally bless me with a baby and now I’m not gonna get to meet her? How is this possible?'”
Menounos also divulged more details about her and Undergaro’s surrogacy journey, clarifying their her hopes for a different gestational carrier fell through.
The “Dancing With the Stars” alum explained that they found a surrogate days before the COVID-19 pandemic and had to put their plans on pause.
“We regrouped by summer when things kind of started to calm down,” she recalled. “But her lining wouldn’t grow to that final stage so we couldn’t implant or we would lose [the embryos]. It was really, really rough.”
Now that Menounos and Undergaro have a second surrogate carrying their little one, the couple are waiting to meet the infant before deciding on her name.
The duo have been married since December 2017, dating for 20 years before their televised New Year’s Eve wedding.
