AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — The atmosphere at Hoda Kotb's Joy 101’s Fall Retreat on Sept. 26 gave Michelle Buteau the confidence to open up about a very personal event in her life.
“It's only really amazing women [I’ve met] who have insane stories about surviving, and surviving is always a word that I'm drawn to,” Buteau, 49, tells USA TODAY in her oceanside Ritz-Carlton suite before hitting the stage. “Even my comedy tour was called ‘Surviving and Thriving,’ and it feels like all the women here are like, ‘Let's thrive.’”
After swapping her aqua Eloquii dress for a sleeveless black ensemble and turning her energy up to a 10, Buteau brought down the hotel ballroom with jokes about her first girls trip, in which their outfits “looked so different” they
“looked like Season 1 of ‘The View.’”
She elicited hearty laughs and snickers from the room full of women before shifting her tone to something more serious. During a brief Q&A, Buteau publicly revealed that her husband, Dutch photographer Gijs van der Most, had been diagnosed with cancer.
An attendee who met the “Survival of the Thickest” star and co-creator inquired, “Even on the darkest days that you experience and the darkest seasons that you go through, how do you still bring laughter into your days?”
“It’s such a good question,” Buteau responded before asking the audience member if she could explain why the two “really bonded” earlier. With permission, Buteau continued.
“Her mom has cancer and my husband has cancer, and so we fully bonded and you know it doesn’t have to be funny all the time, but you have to put it on your list,” Buteau advised. “You just have to put it on your list. And that’s the thing about comedy, you can find really funny moments in the darkest, darkest time. So thank you for that question.”
Buteau did not mention what type of cancer her husband has or when he was diagnosed. USA TODAY has reached out to the comedian for comment.
Speaking to USA TODAY, Kotb marveled at Buteau’s candor on the concluding day of the retreat on Sunday, Sept. 27.
“I think there's something about watching people who are going through stuff,” the former “Today” anchor says. “I didn't know her husband had cancer. What did she do? She took that, put it in her backpack, got up on that stage, and made a room full of women forget all their troubles. It was beautiful!”
“And I think that's what we all do,” Kotb, 62, adds. “It's like we're all carrying something inside, deep down and we just walk. Not everything can be explained away or answered away; you just carry it.”
In her hotel room, Buteau listed her enduring relationship as one of her current sources of joy.
“I've been together with my man, my husband, for 18 years and we still like each other. That's nuts!” she says of van der Most, whom she wed in 2010.
Buteau also included the couple’s 7-year old twins Hazel and Otis. They arrived via surrogate after “eight years of struggle, five years of IVF, [and] four miscarriages,” she said on stage.
Their health is of utmost importance, as well as them being “happy and making new friends at school,” Buteau tells USA TODAY, “and being decisive about their personalities and their haircuts, and that just makes me so happy that they're their own people.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Michelle Buteau reveals husband was diagnosed with cancer | Exclusive
