Rita Wilson Shares What She’s Grateful For After Breast Cancer Battle

But 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 interesting to look at my body in that way and see it, understand what is 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—mom 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 April 28, per People. “The second one was 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, in fact, 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. 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.”

To learn more about other stars who detailed their cancer journeys, read on.