Baywatch Star Nicole Eggert Underwent Mastectomy Amid Breast Cancer Battle

During an appearance on the Amy & T.J podcast, Eggert revealed she underwent a single mastectomy.

“I did eight months of treatment. I just had a mastectomy six days ago and I will go back on treatment,” Eggert, who was initially diagnosed with stage 2 cribriform carcinoma breast cancer in December 2023, shared of the procedure, which is done to remove all or part of a breast either partially or completely.

The actress explained that she had wanted a double mastectomy — where both breasts are surgically removed — but her doctor insisted on going with a single mastectomy as it would allow her to get back into cancer treatment sooner.

“He said ‘I know you want the double but we also need to get you back into treatment. So let’s do the single — it will keep your immune system up higher than if we take both. You’ll be able to get into treatment quicker, we have less chance of infection and a quicker healing time,” Eggert explained. “You can get back to treatment and then when we reconstruct this one [breast], we will take the other one and reconstruct them at the same time and you’ll have new boobs that aren’t trying to kill you.”

Eggert first discovered her cancer during a self-exam after prior mammograms failed to pick up on it.

“I happen to be someone who has very dense breast tissue, so it was missed in the mammograms. I was doing mammograms and ultrasounds, but it wasn’t detected,” she went on to share.

Describing the moment she found the lump on her breast, Eggert said: “I felt a throbbing one day. So when I got in the shower, I did a self-exam, and I felt it and it was large.”

She continued, “My heart stopped; I just couldn’t believe that I didn’t know that was there this whole time. Had I been doing self-exams, which I wasn’t, I would have known it was there sooner.”

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month this month, Eggert urged listeners “to do it all:” get your mammograms, perform self-exams and go to the gynecologist to get them to perform exams.

“Do the yearly mammograms, the monthly self-exams. I say feel yourself up, that’s my little reminder. Don’t forget to feel yourself up because you have to get to know your body and be aware,” Eggert instructed.

As for the next steps in her battle with breast cancer, Eggert says she is waiting on getting the pathology report back from the mastectomy and then will discuss a plan of action with her doctor.

“I will go back into some sort of treatment for three months and then do the scans after three months of treatment. Then we discuss what we do from there,” she said.

Eggert also noted that she isn’t as concerned about the reconstruction of her breasts, revealing that she’s been wearing a “$15 fake boob for now” as she focuses on her treatment.

“It’s very much just one step at a time. But now it’s healing and getting back into some form of treatment, whatever that is,” Eggert stressed.

She’s also kept busy through her health journey by producing the Hulu docuseries After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun, which features intimate interviews with cast members of the cult 90s show and never-seen-before home videos.

Eggert said working on the doc as she battles breast cancer has given her “life,” before promising fans that the show would provide that much-wanted “nostalgia and escapism” they’re looking for as well as “deeper conversations” with the cast.