William Shatner Reveals He and Daughter Melanie Fought Stage 4 Cancer at the Same Time

For William Shatner and his daughter Melanie, family has always meant showing up when it matters most. That bond was tested like never before when the two found themselves fighting cancer simultaneously.

William Shatner is opening up about a harrowing chapter that happened to overlap with his daughter Melanie Shatner Gretsch's own battle.

In a joint interview, the pair discussed facing stage four cancer at the same time, each dealing with a different diagnosis. Melanie recalled one especially dark night three years ago when she realized her father was the only person she could call.

At the time, the former actress was deep in the middle of chemotherapy for stage 4 breast cancer. "I was having a moment and was hysterical," she recalled. "I called you and said, 'I think I'm dying.'"

It wasn't long before William was standing in her driveway that same night, reminding her of her own strength. "He gave me, what I think of ever since I was a little girl, a 'daddy bear hug,'" she said.

"He said, 'This is going to be a blip in your life. You're going to get through this, and it'll be a memory,'" she continued. He was right. "We're a very together family," William emphasized. "We're bonded by all kinds of difficulties that we've overcome."

It's a sentiment the father of three — who is also dad to Melanie's older sisters, Lisabeth, 65, and Leslie, 67 — repeats throughout the conversation.

Melanie stumbled on the lump in her breast by accident in July 2022. "I woke up in the middle of the night, and my finger moved up right beneath my breast. I felt a little bump and thought, 'It's just a bug bite,'" she shared.

Even though she'd had a clear mammogram just five months prior, she booked an imaging appointment the next day.

The technician initially spotted nothing alarming but, as Melanie put it, "Something pushed me back and said, 'No, have her recheck it.' She put the wand exactly where I put my finger and under her breath said, 'Now, I would have missed that.'"

Further testing revealed HER2-positive breast cancer that had already spread to lymph nodes in her chest. A mother of two daughters with her husband, actor Joel Gretsch, Melanie was acutely aware of what was at stake.

"She was very conscious of the importance of her life for herself and for her family," William recalled. "I was devastated." When Melanie voiced worry over the staggering cost of treatment, her father refused to let it weigh on her.

"You said to me, 'I do not want you to worry. Just send me the bills,'" she said. "Then you made me laugh so hard when I was still going to the doctor a year later. You said, 'You've got to get well. We're going to be in the poorhouse!'"

Over the following year and a half, Melanie endured multiple rounds of chemotherapy, HER2-targeted therapies, a double mastectomy — she opted out of reconstruction — and 30 rounds of radiation.

"Chemo was the most physically draining, and the radiation I found so emotionally draining," she said.

As Melanie neared the end of her treatment, her father found a lump in his cheek, raising alarm. "I went to the family doctor, and he said, 'It's your salivary gland. It's blocked. Just massage it,'" William said.

But the growth persisted, and a month later he mentioned it to a plastic-surgeon friend while the two were out horseback riding. "He placed his hands on my cheeks, and he said with love in his voice, 'You better get this out,'" William continued.

The mass proved to be a tumor, and William was diagnosed with stage 4 malignant melanoma that had spread to his lungs and brain.

He underwent surgery to remove the facial tumor, followed by two years of immunotherapy targeting the cancer in his lungs and brain. But even after the diagnosis, Melanie said, "he wouldn't stop his life. He kept working and moving forward."

Today, both Melanie and William are cancer-free — and they're not done yet. Later this month, the two will launch a new weekly podcast, "No Time but Now," where they'll dig deeper into their journey and speak with health experts and fellow survivors.