Peet is mom to daughters Frances, 19, and Molly, 15, as well as son Henry, 11
Credit: Earl Gibson III/Deadline via Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Amanda Peet shared what the hardest part was of telling her kids she has breast cancer
- Peet shared that her therapist encouraged her to be open with her kids and let them process the news
- Peet shares her three kids with husband David Benioff
Amanda Peet is revealing how she shared the news of her breast cancer diagnosis with her three kids.
The actress, who revealed in an essay published by The New Yorker on March 21 that she was diagnosed with breast cancer in the fall of 2025, spoke with E! News on Tuesday, March 24, about how she approached the topic with her kids.
"They've been great. I definitely had to get myself together before including them," said Peet, who shares daughters Frances, 19, and Molly, 15, and son Henry, 11, with her husband, Game of Thrones co-creator David Benioff.
"The hard part was realizing that nothing is certain and there was going to be no perfect time to tell them," she added.
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Credit: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
In her essay last week, Peet reflected on learning she had breast cancer around the same tragic time her parents were dying in separate hospices.
Peet explained that she’d been told “for many years” that her breasts “require extra monitoring” and she “had been seeing a breast surgeon every six months for checkups,” before finding out her diagnosis six months ago.
“The Friday before Labor Day, I went for what I thought would be a routine scan. Dr. K. … told me that she didn’t like the way something looked on the ultrasound and wanted to perform a biopsy,” she said. “After the procedure, she said that she would walk the sample over to Cedars-Sinai and hand-deliver it to Pathology. That’s when I knew.”
Peet said that a “small” tumor was found in her breast, and she had to have an MRI to “determine the extent of the disease.” She later received a phone call from her doctor, telling her that her breast cancer was “HER2-negative.”
Credit: Kevin Mazur/VF23/WireImage for Vanity Fair
HER2-negative breast cancer is when cancerous cells in the breast don’t contain high levels of the protein human epidermal growth factor 2 (HER2), which fuels cancer growth, according to Mayo Clinic.
After finding out that her tumors were benign, Peet and her husband Benioff decided to tell their older daughters, Frances and Molly June.
"My therapist said that I didn’t have to appear strong or unfazed or have definitive answers," Peet said of telling her eldest children. "She said that I’d be surprised by how much children can step up and that calling for all hands on deck can make them feel useful. Molly cried, and Frankie — FaceTiming from her college quad — clapped her hand over her mouth and kept it there until she was able to process the excellent portion of the news: that it appeared I was stage I and wasn’t going to need chemo."
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