RENOWNED journalist KATIE Couric announced she was diagnosed with breast cancer on her eight-year anniversary, in a post on her website.
Her husband, John Molner, previously had a tumor surgically removed only a few months before their wedding.
Who is Katie Couric's husband John Molner?
John Molner married legendary news anchor Katie Couric on June 21, 2014, at her home in the Hamptons.
Couric lost her husband Jay Monahan to colon cancer in 1998, and told PEOPLE in 2018: “It took me a long time [to marry again] because I loved being married and I love being married now. And I’m not a solitary person. I like company."
She continued: "And John is so funny. He’s just got this incredibly dry and wry sense of humor, and he doesn’t take himself too seriously. And he’s just fun to be around.”
Molner attended Trinity College and later got a Master’s in Business Administration from the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business.
After a long career in banking, Molner retired in 2014, but is now a Senior Adviser to BHH Capital Partners.
In 2017, Molner joined his wife on-screen when he co-starred in a cooking show, Full Plate With Katie & John.
The pair also co-founded Katie Couric Media, which "collaborates with some of the world’s biggest brands to create elevated, purpose-driven content."
When did the couple meet?
Couric was first introduced to Molner by her friend Molly in 2012 after asking her if she knew any single surgeons.
Molly told her she didn't, but she knew a banker Couric might be interested in.
When Molner didn't reach out, Couric asked her friend again, prompting Molner to ask her for a date.
"He had me at hello," Couric told PEOPLE about the first time they met.
“Sometimes we get angry at each other,” Couric told the outlet, adding: “Sometimes I feel like he can be tough and I’m sure he thinks I’m insane.
"But for the most part, he’s really good company ... and I can totally be myself with him, sometimes maybe to a fault. I just love being married," she said.
Do they have kids?
Couric and Molner do not have children together, however, she had two daughters with Monahan, who she married in 1989.
Her daughter, Ellie is a Yale graduate, and Carrie graduated from Stanford and went on to get a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
In an essay published by HuffPost, Ellie wrote: "There are moments where I crumble at the thought of my father."
She mourns the absence of her father at major milestones and said she "longed to talk to him" about the historical moments she learned about in her college course, Civil War and Reconstruction.
"I wish we could talk... about anything," she wrote. But continued, "These are fleeting moments, a reminder like an aching joint that flares up now and then, but they bring me a deep sense of sadness, one tinged with regret.
"Like the feeling you have when you sleep in all day and wake up to a gorgeous sunny afternoon.
"There is a sense of lost time, of a million happy moments that have long slipped away."
Couric frequently pays tribute to her late husband which included her opening up in her 2021 memoir about his final days.
In 2019 she wrote: “Dear Jay…It’s June 10, 2019, and today would have been our 30th anniversary,
“I hope you would be proud of the way I’ve lived my life and know you’d be proud of your girls who have grown into incredible young women.”
She also mentioned her new husband in the touching caption: “I think you would like @johnmolner who honors your memory and knows there is room in my heart for you both.”
When was Katie Couric diagnosed with cancer?
Couric spoke about her breast cancer diagnosis in a post on her website titled Why Not Me?
She found out she had breast cancer on her and Molner's eight-year anniversary and said her family's history of cancer flooded through her.
She remembered numerous family members who fought the disease and many who eventually succumbed to their cancer.
She wrote: "The heart-stopping, suspended animation feeling I remember all too well came flooding back: Jay’s colon cancer diagnosis at 41 and the terrifying, gutting nine months that followed.
“My sister Emily’s pancreatic cancer, which would later kill her at 54, just as her political career was really taking off.
"My mother-in-law Carol’s ovarian cancer, which she was fighting as she buried her son, a year and nine months before she herself was laid to rest.”
She warned viewers to get regular mammograms which can detect cancer before it's too late.
Couric had surgery in July 2022 to remove a tumor from her breast that was "2.5 centimeters, roughly the size of an olive."
As Couric warned women to get their annual mammogram, she said she was six months late, adding: “I shudder to think what might have happened if I had put it off longer.
"But just as importantly, please find out if you need additional screening,” she said.
