Fans of Marcia Cross from her days on Melrose Place or even more recently, as part of ABC’s dynamic cast of Desperate Housewives, know that she — like her characters — is one resilient woman. And so when Cross revealed in an Instagram post earlier this month that she’s been quietly battling cancer, the news was naturally met with an outpouring of love and support.
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Cross, 56, has famously been private about her personal life, and so the revelation seemed to especially strike a nerve with her followers, who shared their own cancer-related hair loss stories and words of encouragement.
The next day, Cross took to Instagram once more to thank fans for their concern and to reassure them that she is on the other side of the illness.
“Dearest Kindest Followers,” she wrote in part. “I am so sorry my post wasn’t clear. I am POST cancer. All good now.” Cross also followed that post up with another, expressing how “liberated” and “deliriously free” she felt finally being able to go public about her diagnosis and treatment.
“How or why this simple act gave me such a powerful lift I did not question, but I thanked God or whatever gave me the internal push to move forward and expose myself,” she wrote. Cross further thanked her fans for their outpouring of kindness and noted that her “capacity to receive requires a massive expansion.”
The Desperate Housewives alum also revealed what kind of cancer she suffered from: anal cancer (“I know, right?” she quipped).
Cross’s husband, Tom Mahoney, was previously treated for cancer back in 2009, though the couple did not reveal what form of cancer he was battling at the time.