Rita Wilson is counting her blessings, more than a decade after the "Count Your Blessings" singer underwent a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery in 2015 following her breast cancer diagnosis. She has expressed her profound gratitude towards modern medicine for the positive outcomes of her procedures. "These parts of your body that had been there for you in such a beautiful way were gone," Rita told People. "I'm deeply grateful that there are advancements in modern medicine like reconstruction and implants."
Indeed, Rita nods to the women who suffered from breast cancer in prior generations. "In my mom's generation, if you had breast cancer, that was it," she explained. "There was nothing. You were left with a sense of darkness." And the 69-year-old is not ashamed to acknowledge the medical advancements available to her. "I like to say that I've finally gone Hollywood now," she joked, "and I have some in place."
Nevertheless, Rita still fought a battle 10 years ago when she was diagnosed in 2015. At the time, she couldn't help but notice the changes happening in her body—and how they contradicted each other. "It was intriguing to look at my body in that way and see it, understand what was missing," she explained, "but also [see] what my body could do to keep me healing and healthy and have that appreciation."
While the Now and Then star—mother to Chet Hanks, 35, and Truman Hanks, 30, with husband Tom Hanks—has been in remission for over a decade, she recently revealed that early on, she made plans if the worst happened. "I said to Tom, I'm like, 'OK, if something happens and I go first, I just have two requests. And one is that you should be sad for a very, very long time,'" Rita told Demi Moore at the Sounds of a Woman event in New York City on April 28th. "The second one was to throw me a party."
"I want it to be a celebration of life," she added. "I want it to be about people telling stories and joy and remembering me in that way. And I think people, a lot of people want that, you know? I think there's room for that."
And the "Throw Me a Party" singer did have something to celebrate when she marked 10 years being cancer-free last year. "It's a celebration for me," Rita said in a March 2025 Instagram video. "March 31st marks 10 years of being cancer-free. 10 years. And I am so deeply grateful."
"I'm so thankful to my doctors, to my friends, to my family," she added. "The gratitude is overwhelming. It didn't always feel this way. And you know that anybody who's going through [it] or who's survived knows that it's an up and down like a hamster wheel. But then you get to this point."
