Celebrity interviews

The former NFL star and current morning television darling has long been a supporter of cancer charities. But when his own daughter got sick, he saw the playing field from a whole new perspective.

First, Isabella Strahan realized she couldn’t walk in a straight line. On a hike, her friends asked if she was about to fall off the mountain. A doctor thought she had an ear infection. Then she threw up blood.

Last October Isabella, daughter of Michael ­Strahan—Good Morning America anchor, Fox NFL Sunday presenter, and Hall of Fame defensive end for the New York Giants—was just a few weeks into her freshman year at USC when she was diagnosed with a medulloblastoma, a type of malignant tumor, in her cerebellum.

Three surgeries followed, along with six weeks of radiation and four rounds of chemotherapy, a journey Isabella charted in a raw, honest, funny, informative, and moving series of videos on her YouTube channel. As her followers have seen, Isabella has had to relearn how to walk and talk, and her recovery is ongoing.

Now officially cancer-free, she has shared with her social media followers a picture of a handwritten note that reads, “Believe that things will get better. No matter what, keep going! F–k cancer!” On August 20 a selfie taken with her mom Jean Muggli was captioned “Back at USC.” A video showed her dancing in her new apartment.

“I get to start my freshman year again, and I hope I’m there for longer than 50 days this time,” Isabella says, as she sits beside Michael after their T&C photo shoot. The soft-spoken Isabella is “really excited” to return to studying journalism and communications (she has received course credits for her videos), as well as making friends and enjoying college life.

“I can’t wait for her to be back at college and live, to get back to what she was doing before and have fun, sororities, football games,” Michael says. Then, in a very Dad voice, he adds, “And most of all go to class and get great grades.”

Both father and daughter laugh. They are sweetly close, joshing with each other, as well as talking about their love and the shock of the past year and the learning it has entailed. Isabella says, “I feel like I’m 50 years old, with all this life experience.”

“No, you’re not. I can tell you how that feels,” her 52-year-old dad says, laughing.

“I feel like I’ve grown in many ways,” Isabella says. “I’m super-­grateful for walking and talking again. You don’t think of the things you can do until you live without them.”

“It was definitely tough and painful to watch that,” Michael says. “It was like, ‘How soon is it going to come back?’ It was painful for her to get out of bed and move and do those things that are completely necessary for her to do. As a parent, to see that was unsettling at times. But throughout this entire journey, Isabella has inspired and helped us all by how she has approached what she was facing. She has worked so hard, and with such amazing spirit. And she is still on a journey with her vision, balance, and getting her weight back.”

Isabella currently has double vision, “and my balance is all over the place.” She is also determinedly trying to gain weight. “I have frozen shakes all the time, and I’m like, ‘Why haven’t I gained 30 pounds?’ ”

Michael laughs. “The vision and balance stuff sound like me. Yours is going to come back. I’m getting old. Just wait till you get to the point in your life where you’re like, ‘God, I don’t want to gain any more weight.’ ”

Her diagnosis and first surgery took place as Isabella turned 19; now, a year later, she and Michael, a longtime supporter of St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, want to use her experience to do good, raising money for St. Jude’s as well as Duke Children’s Hospital and the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center, where Isabella received treatment. They tell T&C they hope that sharing their experiences will help increase understanding for other families going through similar health crises. Both father and daughter will attend this year’s T&C Philanthropy Summit; Isabella is particularly excited to meet others, as she looks to solidify her own presence in the charitable sphere.

Recently her social media followers have seen images signaling her determination to return to a happy life: bikini selfies, a horse in its stable, avocado toast.

“It’s been a crazy year,” Michael says. “I think in the long run we’ll figure out a way to benefit from it. The process was a lot scarier than we imagined—seeing her come out of surgery, and all the things she had to learn how to do again. You just pray that everything gets back to normal.

“There were times when we said, ‘We know it’s painful and tough, but it’s temporary.’ The last year is one we hope to forget, but at the same time it’s shown us a lot of important things about who she is and about who we are and about how we show up for each other as a family.” (Michael has two older children, Tanita and Michael Jr., with his first wife, Wanda Hutchins. And Isabella has a twin sister, Sophia.)

Isabella smiles. She got her treatments at Duke, the university Sophia attends. “Normally we don’t even share clothes, and now we were all nice to each other.” Her dad laughs. “I can tell things are pretty much back to normal: She’s fighting with her sister over clothes again.”

Michael was at a birthday dinner with one of his old Giants teammates when he got the call about Isabella’s diagnosis. He rushed to the airport to fly to the West Coast. “At the time, Isabella was modeling, the face of Sephora. She was healthy, beautiful. It was surreal. For a week or two I’d wake up and go, ‘Okay, that was a bad dream,’ and then realize, ‘We’re still in this another day. Here we go.’ ”

Was Michael frightened Isabella would die? “Yes, as a parent you hear that your kid has cancer and you go, ‘Whoa.’ You have to control your thoughts, because your brain thinks of the worst case scenario, and then you work your way back from there. I don’t think I’ll go through the rest of my life without some worry in some shape or form about this.”

Did Isabella ever get depressed? “Yes, there are times, but what are you going to do? It’s not going to help in any way. You’ve just got to get through it.”

“If she didn’t have that attitude, that kind of energy and positivity about it, I think it would have been 10 times tougher,” Michael says.

“I was not scared going into brain surgery. I was laughing,” Isabella says.

Her father says he was “always amazed” at how tough Isabella was. “She said to me, ‘Obviously, I’m going to do all I have to do, because I want to live.’ She expressed everything she was feeling, when she was up and down. She’s also funny and vulnerable. She cries, she’s funny, she’s goofy.”

She started making videos from the simple desire to connect with others confronting the same illness—which produced positive responses. “You shouldn’t underestimate how much a kind word or gesture means for someone going through something,” Michael says.

He was a “little bit worried” that the videos would be too exposing. “I was like, ‘You don’t have to do this, you can just quietly go heal yourself.’ I was worried not everyone would be kind. But she really wanted to do it. I’m so glad she did. People come up to me everywhere—at the gym, while I’m playing golf—to tell me they love her YouTube channel. Now I see what she has done to help people and support her 1,200 percent.”

Today officially cancer-free, Isabella is less fearful of the disease, although she is sticking to a healthy diet and having an MRI every two months to ensure that nothing changes in her brain. “My doctors have told me they don’t think it will recur, which is very reassuring.”

The experience has changed father and daughter’s relationship; they spend a lot more time together. “She gives me the same amount of crap,” he says, laughing.

“I’m happy to be here,” Isabella says. “I think this year has made me stronger. The people in your life are what makes it enjoyable. Now I don’t say no to anything. I don’t think, I’ll do it next week. You don’t know what next week will look like.”

Michael, who recently became a grandfather when his eldest daughter, Tanita, welcomed a son in September, now lives life “more in the moment. I’m more gentle in a lot of ways. I always loved and appreciated my family, but sometimes you’re just working, working, working. Now I work, but I see an end to that, because I want to spend time with my family. It’s the most important thing. I love that my girls are in college and I have the ability to go and spend time with them.

“We’ve always been a close family, but this last year has given me some perspective. At the end of the day the most important thing is your kids, your family, your mom, your father, your other loved ones—and just to hold them close to you, and your friends as well. Now I wake up every day and enjoy that day, more so than looking to next week, next month, or next year.”

Has it made him think of giving up his life in television, or think of retiring? Michael smiles. “I’ve always had those thoughts. It will happen at some point. It’s not happening anytime soon. The kids are still in school. I’m empty-nesting again. I have loved having the energy and noise and arguing around the house, but I’m just so happy for Isabella to get back to college. I want her to have that sense of independence again, because my kids can’t grow if they’re under my shade.

“I’m not planning on retiring anytime soon. I will at some point, and I’d like to say a lot sooner than a lot of people probably think I will. When I do it, it will be because I just want to have the freedom to be with her and her sister, and her other sister and brother. Wherever they are, whatever they’re doing, I want to be there.”

Michael didn’t go to work in the first three weeks after Isabella’s diagnosis and first surgery. “I missed GMA, my football show, everything. To be honest with you, none of it ­mattered. Being at work or being at the hospital: What was the most important thing? You have to figure that out and make whatever the best decision is for you and your family. And that’s what I did.

“I think going back to work was also good—it normalized things for me. I thought, Okay, we’re going to get back on track with life. To go to work, come home, take her to radiation—that cycle, routine. To have the support of people at GMA and Fox was a godsend.”

Fellow GMA anchor Robin Roberts, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 and later had a bone marrow transplant, was a key support. “When Isabella wanted to tell everyone about what was going on, there was this talk in the media about me: Where was I? Why was I not at work?” Michael recalls.

Isabella laughs. “Never mind me. It was like, ‘Where’s your dad? Did he quit GMA? Did he move somewhere else?’ ”

“I didn’t say anything because it was not my story to tell. It was hers,” Michael says. “I’m not going to put her business out there. I’m her parent, and my job is to protect her, and at that moment she didn’t want it to get out there. When she said she wanted to talk about it, I suggested talking to Robin beforehand.”

“It was very helpful,” Isabella says. “Robin had experienced chemo. She knows how it feels.”

Is Michael still happy at GMA? Recently, when he took a break with the family, there was more media speculation about his whereabouts.

“Yes, I love GMA,” he says. “I love it because I never expected to be there, after all those years playing football, football commentary, then daytime television. I love it because it’s engaging, different, and fun, and keeps me interested. I have to learn so much about so many things. I love the whole team. Everything I have done in my life has been as part of being a team. I absolutely love that.”

Of their shared focus on charity work, Isabella says, “Most people don’t understand what families are going through. It’s also important to give back to the staff who helped me, because they saved my life. All the doctors and nurses were amazing.” (She and her father both single out Dr. David Ashley for particular mention, Michael noting the “very individual” relationship he and Isabella built.)

It has been “so surreal” for Michael, having been a St. Jude’s advocate for so long, to now be a parent who has himself gone through an experience akin to those of other St. Jude’s families—“seeing the value of the comfort and support St. Jude’s provides, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That’s what we held on to as well. I sympathize and empathize with all families who are going through this. We’re not the first family to go through this and unfortunately won’t be the last, but if we can help at all, hopefully at some point there will be a last. St. Jude’s relieves the financial strain for families who need support. I want to do as much as I can to help all these families who are not as fortunate as we are in certain ways to get through this.”

How would father and daughter advise other families facing intense challenges? “Stay in the present. Appreciate where you are even if you’re in a lot of pain,” Isabella says. “Don’t think about the future. Appreciate everyone around you. Tell them you love them.”

“From a parent’s standpoint, take a positive attitude, which your child can take on. Support your child,” Michael says. “Don’t be afraid to cry, don’t be afraid to be emotional and vulnerable. Don’t be afraid to say, ‘I love you.’ Don’t be afraid to say something you always wanted to say.”

“Yeah, don’t be afraid to say something, because you may never have a chance again to say it,” Isabella says forcefully. “And what’s the point of not saying it? Life’s too short.”

In farewell, when I ask if either has anything else to say, Isabella says no, then Michael softly says the same. Then he looks at his daughter and adds firmly, “If she’s okay, I’m okay.”