Gabrielle Union is opening up about how she navigated her husband Dwyane Wade’s cancer diagnosis.
“Obviously, him getting that diagnosis was traumatic for him, you know, being faced with your own mortality in your early 40s,” Union, 52, said on the Wednesday, February 26, broadcast of Today With Jenna and Friends. “You’re like, ‘Am I going to be here to see my family? Who am I without this big life? Without this healthy body?’”
Wade, 43, revealed on his eponymous podcast in January that he had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on his kidney nearly two years earlier that required surgery. Wade’s procedure, which removed most of one of Wade’s kidneys, took place in December 2023 and was ultimately successful.
“But you also don’t understand the journey and the toll it takes on your marriage, on your family, on your kids,” Union recalled on Wednesday, noting the NBA alum was “a little more hesitant” to let his loved ones in on his “journey of healing.”
Dwyane Wade Says He Had ’40 Percent’ of Kidney Removed for Cancerous Tumor
Wade shares children Zaire, 22, and Zaya, 17, with ex-wife Siovaughn Funches, son Xavier, 10, with ex Aja Metoyer and daughter Kaavia, 6, with Union. Along with Union, Wade’s father sat at his hospital bedside post-surgery.
“That level of vulnerability, to go through removal of a good chunk of his kidney and the healing that involved, he needed us to be OK with his vulnerability,” Union explained to host Jenna Bush Hager. “But more than that, he needed to be OK with his vulnerability. It was a challenge to give grace and receive it.”
The retired athlete had noted on his podcast last month that the health scare was likely the first time that his children “saw him weak.”
A Great Team! Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union’s Relationship Timeline
“That moment was probably the weakest point I’ve ever felt in my life,” Wade said at the time. “The moments I was by myself, I was struggling. One thing you never want to do as a man … is [for] your family to see you weak. It’s tough.”
Despite trying to manage the diagnosis on his own, Wade admitted he was “fortunate” to see his family rally around him.
“I saw everybody show up for me and be there for me,” Wade shared. “In that process of my weakness, I found strength in my family, in my friends, in my group. I came out of that and I’ve been doing things differently and I’ve been attacking life that way. I’m not waiting.”
