Sarah Paulson Praises Best Friend Amanda Peet’s ‘Profoundly Gorgeous’ Essay About Cancer Battle

Sarah Paulson is in awe of how her longtime friend Amanda Peet summarized her recent cancer battle.

“My best friend, Amanda Peet … has written the most profoundly gorgeous essay about the loss of her parents, while dealing with a breast cancer diagnosis,” Paulson, 51, wrote via Instagram on Saturday, March 21. “@newyorkermag has published it today, and I’m screaming from the rooftops with joy. I hope you all take the time to read it.”

She continued, “If you are running around and doing other stuff, I did the audio recording and you can listen to me try to do the piece justice. My friend is a @newyorkermag essayist. How outrageously groovy is that? Bird, I love you beyond.”

Paulson subsequently inspired a number of her other famous friends to read Peet’s story.

“Going to read now!!” Naomi Watts wrote in the comments section, while Rose Byrne revealed that she already “read [the essay] this morning” and found the prose to be “so extraordinary.”

Ali Wentworth, for her part, added, “It’s a beautifully written piece. All too familiar. Give Amanda a huge hug for me!”

In her essay, Peet, 54, revealed that she was diagnosed with stage I breast cancer “last fall” while both her parents were in hospice care.

“For many years, I’ve been told that I have ‘dense’ and ‘busy’ breasts — not as a compliment but as a warning that they require extra monitoring,” the Your Friends and Neighbors star wrote. “I had been seeing a breast surgeon every six months for checkups. The Friday before Labor Day, I went for what I thought would be a routine scan.”

Peet’s physician subsequently told her that she “didn’t like the way something looked on the ultrasound” and requested that the actress undergo a biopsy. Two tumors, one of which was benign, were visible on one breast.

As Peet waited to find out what type of cancer she had, her parents were on their death beds.

“Our parents, long divorced, were both in hospice, on opposite coasts,” Peet recalled to the outlet, also referring to her sister. “Our mother’s had started in June, but our father’s was only a week in, so we hadn’t expected him to go first. I flew to New York. I didn’t make it before my father took his last breath, but I got to see his body before it was taken from his apartment.”

Peet returned home to Los Angeles, where she learned that her cancer was “hormone-receptor-positive” and “HER2-negative.” She received her first “clear scan” shortly before her mom’s death in January.