When Julia Louis-Dreyfus was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017, she spoke candidly about it in public – a decision that was widely praised but one the actress says she had no choice in.
Speaking to Amy Poehler on the Good Hang podcast, Louis-Dreyfus revealed she felt she had been "backed into a corner" to make her health battle public.
If circumstances had been different, she likely would have kept things much more private, she says.
The revelation came up as Poehler praised the actress for her vulnerability.
"You shared with the world when you were treating your cancer, your breast cancer. And it was very helpful for a lot of people," Poehler said on the December 9 episode of her podcast.
"It isn't something you needed to share. You did."
Dreyfus replied: "Well, I was kind of backed into a corner on that one because we had to shut our show down".
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"It's funny how that worked out because normally I would not have done that. I'm very private," she added.
Louis-Dreyfus, who starred as Elaine Benes in Seinfeld and Selina Meyer in Veep, says the political satire series had to be shut down for a year as she pursued treatment for her cancer, meaning she had give a reason to the show's cast and crew.
"Because we had to shut the show down for a year, I had to say it," she added.
"Two hunded and fifty people weren't going to be working so I had to make a public thing about it."
While it wasn't what she would have initially chosen to do, Louis-Dreyfus says there was a silver lining.
"The good thing about doing that was that I did have this incredible experience of people reaching out to me asking me about my experience going through the breast cancer for advice," she said.
"I was able to help and there was something unbelievably comforting about being able to do that on the other side of this trauma.
"There's a lot to be said in self-soothing by soothing others."
Louis-Dreyfus was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer in September 2017.
After a double mastectomy and six rounds of chemotherapy, the actress revealed she was cancer-free in October 2018.
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