Jill Biden has opened up about the warning sign she noticed in her husband long before he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
Speaking on SiriusXM’s Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa, the former First Lady described noticing that Joe Biden, now 83, was getting up to use the bathroom as many as seven times a night.
She flagged the issue with the White House medical team but heard nothing further and assumed it had been dealt with.
Of course it later turned out that was not the case.
A diagnosis that was missed
After the couple left the White House in January 2025, the pattern continued. Jill pushed Joe to seek a second opinion from a specialist in Philadelphia, telling him something was wrong. He listened.
In May 2025 he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had already spread to his bones.
In a separate CBS Sunday Morning interview, Jill said she was shocked the cancer had not been picked up during the extensive medical examinations Biden received throughout his presidency.
She described the care they received in the White House as remarkable overall, which made the missed diagnosis all the more difficult to understand.
Kelly Ripa’s father’s bone cancer was only discovered after a car accident.
Living with cancer for the rest of his life
Because the cancer was not caught earlier it had time to metastasize, meaning Joe Biden will never be fully free of it. The couple now manage his condition with testing and medication every three months.
Jill drew on her family’s long experience of cancer, including the death of Joe’s eldest son Beau from glioblastoma in 2015, in describing what living with the disease on an ongoing basis feels like. She called it constant and daily, and acknowledged it is challenging.
She added that despite everything Joe is doing okay.
The American Urological Association does not recommend routine blood screening for prostate cancer in men over 70, as the disease is generally considered slow-growing.
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