Lisa Lisa Hid Cancer Battle From Family for Years Over Career Concerns

TMZ

Pop icon Lisa Lisa is opening up about her secret cancer battle in her early career -- revealing she kept it under wraps for years out of fear it would cost her everything.

Transcript

00:00That must be really fulfilling that you can have a company like Lifetime, A&E, look back

00:11on your life and commit to a biopic telling a really compelling story.

00:17That must feel great.

00:18Yeah, it feels wonderful.

00:19I was very happy when Tracy Twinkie Bird, who is one of the executive producers in the

00:27biopic, and they came to me and they said, we want to tell your story.

00:31I said, really, okay.

00:34The big revelation was that the fact that you kept secret the fact that you were diagnosed

00:40with breast cancer at a very, in your mid 20s.

00:43I think 21, right?

00:44Yeah.

00:45When I got approached, I was not sure if I wanted to say anything.

00:50I didn't think it was important, but I think it definitely, if people want to know my life,

00:55I mean, I have a very strong following and people always ask that question.

01:01How is it being in this industry at such a young age?

01:05I needed to tell everything.

01:06If I'm going to say something, I'm going to say the truth and yeah, I hid it.

01:10I hid it for so many years.

01:12I didn't tell my mother about it till rest her soul.

01:15She passed away 15 years ago, but maybe 16 years after.

01:21What was behind that?

01:22I'm really interested.

01:23What made you keep that secret?

01:26I didn't want any of it to get taken away from me.

01:30Back then, it was the 80s.

01:32We didn't have anyone to talk to about it.

01:35Even medical technology was completely different.

01:38The medicines and everything was so different.

01:42I got a lot of different reactions from the people I was working with asking me silly

01:50questions like, why are you always sleeping and are you pregnant because of the swelling

01:57and all that, but I was just very fearful it would be taken away from me.

02:02Was there a revelation that came out that you never really thought about yourself, but

02:09by doing this, it's like, oh my God, I went through this or I'm like that or something

02:15like that, some revelation?

02:17Absolutely.

02:18100.

02:20Filming this movie, watching it be put together, it was therapeutic for me.

02:27I had maybe three major breakdowns going through it because I had to remember everything that

02:33I went through.

02:34The first scene in the movie was pretty ... It was hard to remember all of that.

02:40I remember getting on the set and just looking at all the stuff that was on the set, the

02:48photos, the stove, the refrigerator, the Walkman I held in my hand.

02:54That was crazy.

02:55Just to see all of that, to remember all of that, I had to go through a lot of therapy.

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