(Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Al Roker, the sweet jolly weatherman that has been the first person many of us saw each morning for decades, has announced he has prostate cancer.
Roker, 66, made the announcement live on the air on Friday, adding that he is “going to be OK.”
“It’s a good news-bad news kind of thing,” Roker said on the Today Show. “Good news is we caught it early. Not great news is that it’s a little aggressive, so I’m going to be taking some time off to take care of this.”
NBC says Roker will undergo surgery in New York next week at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Roker added that he went public with his diagnosis because he wanted to highlight the dangers the disease poses to American men. One in nine men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetimes. The disease also disproportionately affects Black men, as one in seven African-American men will face a prostate cancer diagnosis.