14 DAY TRIAL // In March 2013, 74-year-old actress Valerie Harper shocked the world when she came out on the cover of People magazine saying she’d been diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer and had been given by doctors only 3 more months to live. Today, in much better health, she is forced to deny reports that she’s cancer-free.
Valerie did not let her diagnosis and the treatment she had to undergo bring her down. In fact, she said in her first televised interview after the shocking news that she wasn’t “dying until I do,” meaning that she would not give up the fight until the last moment.
Right after that, she joined ABC’s Dancing With the Stars lineup to raise awareness on cancer and, once more, to prove to the world that she wasn’t about to give up. She didn’t make it far in the competition but, while still on the show, she made every moment count both for herself and the viewers at home.
By August, doctors were telling her that she was close to remission, a happy piece of news that she shared with her fans in yet another TV interview.
However, they didn’t tell her just recently that she was “absolutely cancer-free,” as Closer magazine reports.
“In response to a recent erroneous quote concerning my health, I am not ‘absolutely cancer-free.’ I wish I were. Right now what I am is cautiously optimistic about my present condition and I have hope for the future,” the actress tells Us Weekly in a statement.
Closer magazine is a British tab so, like most tabs, there is a chance that the quote is either completely made up or taken out of context / twisted. The publication is yet to pull it from their website, where it also claims they had an exclusive interview with Harper.
“My last scans have been positive, and my doctors are very happy. [The oncologist] looked at the scans and said, ‘Oh my God, Valerie, this is very encouraging!’,” she is also quoted as saying.
Harper, who became an international star thanks to “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” has been diagnosed with leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, which is a rare condition in which cancer cells spread into the membrane surrounding the brain.
In an NBC special that aired last fall, documenting Valerie’s cancer battle starting right after the moment she learned of the diagnosis, her oncologist said that the type of cancer she had was incurable. He also explained that Valerie was close to remission and that this “defie[d] the odds.”