One of Michael Strahan’s youngest daughters is battling with a malignant brain tumor, and her father is right by her side in the fight.
Strahan and his 19-year-old daughter, Isabella, shared the news of her diagnosis of the rare brain cancer medulloblastoma on Thursday’s Good Morning America. He shared his optimism, as well as his adoration for Isabella.
“I literally think that in a lot of ways, I’m the luckiest man in the world because I’ve got an amazing daughter,” Michael said during the interview with his GMA co-anchor, Robin Roberts. “I know she’s going through it, but I know that we’re never given more than we can handle and that she is going to crush this.”
Isabella was diagnosed in October of 2023 after experiencing what she believed was vertigo while trying to enjoy her first year at the University of Southern California. “I didn’t notice anything was off till probably like Oct. 1,” she said. “That’s when I definitely noticed headaches, nausea, couldn’t walk straight.” By the end of that month, she woke up in a harrowing way.
“I woke up, probably at like, 1 p.m. I dreaded waking up. But I was throwing up blood,” she said. “I was like, ‘Hm, this probably isn’t good.’ So I texted [my sister], who then notified the whole family.”
After persuading her to see a doctor, she was given a thorough checkup, including an MRI. Doctors found a tumor, bigger than a golf ball, at the back of her brain.
“I don’t really remember much,” Michael said. “I just remember trying to figure out how to get to LA ASAP. And it just doesn’t feel real. It just didn’t feel real.”
Doctors at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles encouraged Michael, who works in New York, to allow them to get the tumor out as soon as possible, keeping her in LA. They did, removing it on Oct. 27, the day before she turned 19. Afterward, she required a month of rehabilitation, radiation treatment, and had to learn to walk again with help from her twin sister Sophia. But these days, she told Roberts she’s in a much better place.
“I’m feeling good. Not too bad. And I’m very excited for this whole process to wrap,” she stated. “But you just have to keep living every day, I think, through the whole thing.”
Treatment continues in February, when she will go to Durham, North Carolina to begin chemotherapy at Duke Children’s Hospital & Health Center. Sister Sophia attends Duke University. Isabella plans to partner with Duke to share her journey through a YouTube series and looks forward to raising awareness and offering hope to others with this condition.
“It’s been like, two months of keeping it quiet, which is definitely difficult,” she said during the interview. “I don’t wanna hide it anymore ’cause it’s hard to always keep in. I hope to just kind of be a voice, and be [someone] who people, maybe [those who] are going through chemotherapy or radiation can look at.”
For Isabella, she told Roberts that her situation has given her a strong sense of gratitude. “I am grateful just to walk or see friends or do something, ’cause when you can’t do something, it like, really impacts you.”
As for her father, watching Isabella’s fight has changed him and the way he sees life, as well as himself.
“You learn that you’re probably not as strong as you thought you were when you have to really think about the real things, and I realized that I need support from everybody,” Michael shared. “You think that I’m the athlete, the tough guy, you know, I can come and handle, I’m the father in the family. It is not about any of that. It doesn’t matter. And it’s really made me change my perspective on so many things in my life.”
Before announcing her diagnosis, Michael recently celebrated Isabella for a major modeling gig, being the face of an ad for Sephora Collection.
“So proud of my beautiful and amazing daughter, @isabellastrahan on her first big campaign. Proud of you #GirlDad,” he said in a post shared on Dec. 31, 2023.
Isabella is a twin, the youngest of Michael’s children alongside Sophia Strahan. The girls are his children with ex-wife Jean Muggli. His eldest children are Tanita and Michael Strahan Jr., whom he shares with his first wife, Wanda Hutchins.