I'm Focused on Recovery

AFTER HER SECOND BREAST CANCER DIAGNOSIS IN 10 YEARS, THE FORMER DANCING WITH THE STARS HOST IS DETERMINED TO GET BACK TO HER HIGHEST HEIGHTS'

- ALEXANDRA SCHONFELD

One day last July, just two months after celebrating a decade of being cancer-free, Samantha Harris looked across the living room at her two daughters with tears in her eyes and began a conversation she never thought she'd need to have again. "Sharing the words with your child, 'I have cancer,' is soul-crushing,” says Harris, 51.

Weeks prior the former Dancing With the Stars host found out the "tiny" lump she'd been monitoring for a year was a recurrence of breast cancer, which she first faced in 2014. She underwent surgery in August, and despite the setback, "I feel fantastic. I'm back to hiking and stairclimbing and full energy."

Harris's initial diagnosis 10 years ago came after a jam-packed period for her career: In addition to DWTS she cohosted Entertainment Tonight and in 2009 made her Broadway debut as Roxie Hart in Chicago. At the time, the breast cancer news was "a crushing blow." For weeks, she remembers, "it took away the happy-golucky person that I am."