Jill Martin Pokes Fun at Her Hair 'Growing Up' After Chemotherapy, Jokes That She Looks Like a Duck
“Sometimes you just have to laugh,” said Jill Martin, who lost her hair during chemotherapy for breast cancer
Jill Martin/Instagram
Jill MartinJill Martin is keeping her spirits up as she recovers from chemotherapy.
On May 4, the Today show correspondent posted a video on Instagram showing off her wild hair, joking about how it’s grown back throughout her cancer journey. The 47-year-old was diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2023, just one week after she tested positive for the BRCA gene. She lost her hair during chemotherapy treatment.
“So I just want to keep it real. People have been asking if my hair is growing back. Umm, it is… it’s just growing up,” she said with a laugh.
In the clip, Martin showed off a coffee mug with a picture of a duck with plants sticking up on its head, comparing herself to it.
“Claudia — who worked with me with the cold cap, which saved about 30% of my hair but allowed it to grow back quicker — sent me this mug and said, ‘This is how your hair is gonna grow.’ So look, Claudia.”
“We’re twinsies,” she said, holding the mug up to her face.
Martin also boasted that her eyelashes and eyebrows are also starting to grow back. “But I just wanted to really highlight my hair today because it’s really exceptional,” she quipped.
The lifestyle contributor captioned the video by teasing, “Name the movie of the character I look like. Sometimes you just have to laugh. 😂 ❤️💃💪🏼”
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In October 2023, Martin opened up to PEOPLE about how losing her hair was the one thing she was truly dreading during her breast cancer treatments, in addition to everything else she was processing.
"It sounds silly but I love my hair," she said. "It's always been something I've been proud of."
So when her surgeon, Dr. Elisa Port, told her about cold-capping — a procedure in which hair follicles are literally frozen at sub-zero temperatures during chemo treatments to prevent them from absorbing the chemicals — she was willing to try it to see if she could prevent too much of her hair from falling out.
"Everybody's choice is different when it comes to their hair," Martin told PEOPLE. "For some people, it's empowering to shave their head because they take control of the situation before cancer takes it. But obviously it's a choice no one wants to make."
She added, "Because I am still on the air on Today, and I am on Zoom calls and I am continuing to work while I go through this, I just didn't want every conversation to be centered around my hair. I didn't want everything to lead with what I looked like."
Martin said she did her cold-capping at the same time as her chemo, meaning she's sitting in a chair for 12 hours at a time during those sessions.
"If I hadn't done cold-capping, I would be completely bald right now," she said at the time. "It's like having a 12-hour brain freeze."
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