Tragic Details About Maria Menounos' Life

Maria Menounos' life has been full of side quests. Reporting, hosting, directing, modeling, acting, wrestling, and dancing — you name it, she's probably done it. The lovable TV star kicked off her career as a journalist in 2002 when she joined "Entertainment Tonight." Menounous later moved on to "Access Hollywood" and "Extra," the latter of which earned her a Daytime Emmy Award. During those same years, she also starred in movies such as "Fantastic Four" and music videos including Jessica Simpson's "A Public Affair," directed a Wilmer Valderrama short film that screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, served as a guest host on "WWE RAW," and even debuted as an in-ring competitor herself. If that wasn't enough, the-then "Extra" host also learned various ballroom dances and competed against other celebrities on "Dancing with the Stars" Season 14.

The following years found a super busy Menounos starring in her own reality show alongside a comedy film with legendary actor Christopher Lloyd, becoming an "E! News" co-anchor, hosting tons of different television and radio shows, writing books, launching podcasts, and co-founding multiple companies, including the online podcasting network AfterBuzz TV and holiday season-focused film production company We Heart Holidays. In 2004, the prolific TV personality explained why she doesn't limit herself, career-wise. "I have never been happy doing just one thing. A lot of people criticized me at a young age, because I wanted to do a lot of different things. And that's just how I am. I'm happiest when I'm doing a million things. I don't see my career going in any one direction. I see myself doing a potpourri of things," she told Comicbookmovie.com.

Even more admirable, she did all this while dealing with a series of heartbreaking moments in her personal life that would knock most people down.

Sadly, it's considerably more common to hear about celebrities breaking up rather than their relationships or marriages working out, but Maria Menounos and her now-husband Keven Undergaro were among those who beat the odds. Though they got married in 2017, they've been together since 1998, and the couple's relationship still appears to be going strong as of 2025. However, they didn't just have to face challenges posed by the usual hardships of trying to make it in Hollywood; they also had to deal with opposition from Maria's father, who did not approve of his daughter dating a non-Greek man. 

The TV host — who was 19 when she began dating Undergaro — was kicked out of the family home by her dad, Constantinos Menounos, who also cut off all financial support after she refused to break up with her then-boyfriend. "My dad was very upset, pretty much disowned me, took my education away," she admitted to AOL in 2016. "I was now pretty much homeless, no education, no degree, but I had Keven." Maria and Undergaro chose to stay together while pursuing their dreams and even lived in a basement in Boston. "We spent so many nights clinging to each other crying and it was terrible," she recalled. 

When the intrepid journalist scored her big "ET" gig, and the couple relocated to Los Angeles, Maria's father finally mended fences with both his daughter and Undergaro. For his 80th birthday in 2024, she surprised Constantinos with a big Greek-themed bash, per Facebook. The TV star expressed gratitude that they were able to celebrate this milestone after she "almost lost him countless times" due to his Type 1 diabetes.

Maria Menounos' participation in Season 14 of "DWTS," back in 2012, was memorable in more ways than one. She and her pro partner Derek Hough delivered several incredible performances, including a vampire-themed paso doble that earned them a perfect score from the judges. Equally stunning was the fact that they were ultimately sent home in Week 9 following another top-score showing — which naturally ended up being one of the most shocking eliminations in "DWTS" history. While it wasn't obvious from the way she gave it her all on the dancefloor week after week, Menounos suffered several injuries throughout her time on "DWTS," including broken ribs, a hurt chin, and fractured feet. 

But she really downplayed them at the time, telling People in March 2012 that her mantra was "dance broken."  However, the prolific host later acknowledged that the injuries took her out of commission in terms of sports and exercise for about a year.While speaking with CBS News in March 2013, Menounos disclosed that she couldn't do her usual workouts, such as playing basketball, and stuck to yoga and walking for several months while waiting for her body to stop hurting and fully recover. "I was [...] injured for the last year and that threw off a lot of what I could do. I tried to do as much walking as I could, but I had seven stress factors and I was trying to heal on my feet," she shared. 

Fortunately, neither her injuries nor her "DWTS" elimination put Menounos off dancing, with the star confidently promising OK! magazine in September 2012, "The second I am fully healed, I'll be dancing my little heart out because there's no better workout." 

Maria Menounos' family was hit with a twofold blow when she and her mom Litsa Menounos both shockingly learned they had tumors in their brains around the same time. In August 2016, Litsa received the devastating news that she had stage 4 brain cancer. Maria, along with her family, focused on supporting her mom during her treatment, but she later divulged to Yahoo! Life just how painful it was to witness Litsa dealing with not only the symptoms of cancer but also going through the treatment. "You never want to see someone you love suffer," the TV host said. "But I was just like, 'Oh God, I wish you gave this to me 'cause I feel like I could fight this better.'"

However, two months later, the "Extra" host learned that her prayer was granted when she was diagnosed with meningioma. An MRI revealed that it wasn't stress that was causing her headaches and blurry vision but rather a tumor pressing on her facial nerves. However, Maria chose not to tell her parents the bad news until June 2017, just a few days before she was scheduled to undergo surgery. "Deciding to tell [them] was the toughest part," she told People. "If my mom was stable, it would have been easier."

The tumor turned out to be benign, and she had fully recovered from the surgery by May 2018. But this didn't mean the months following her surgery weren't grueling. "It really affected my balance a lot and I had a lot of difficulty with my eyes — I was seeing double and triple. I needed a walker for a long time for stability," Maria confirmed on "Today."

Four years after she was diagnosed with brain cancer, Maria Menounos' beloved mom Litsa Menounos sadly passed away on May 2, 2021. Maria shared the heartbreaking news on Instagram via a photo of her holding her mother as they laid on a bed alongside the message: "RIP mom. god loved her so much he took her on greek easter." A few weeks later, the "Better Together" podcast host paid tribute to Litsa during Brain Tumor Awareness Month, posting a photo of her mom at the hospital and recalling that Litsa was "sooooo brave and sooooo positive" throughout her cancer journey.

Litsa was thankfully able to spend the last months of her life in the comfort of their home in Connecticut after a friend of Maria's flew them to the state from Los Angeles on his private plane. "You made her dream come true," the beloved TV star told the friend, Ed Mylett, during an episode of "Better Together," adding, "She's been so dying to come home. It's been over a year and a half, and she flew home so comfortably."

On the third anniversary of Litsa's death, the "One Tree Hill" alum shared another photo of her and her mom, noting that she's made sure her and her husband Keven Undergaro's daughter Athena knows her grandmother. "Time truly flies. How can it be that my Mom died 3 years ago? I miss her so much but keep her memory alive daily with Athena. We start our days saying hello to her and I tell her how much my Mom, her yiayia, loves her. It helps me, and I love creating that bond for her even if she's not here in the physical. Miss you Mom," Maria sweetly wrote in the caption.

After her mom's death and her own brain tumor diagnosis, Maria Menounos seemingly couldn't catch a break health-wise. In May 2023, she revealed that she had been diagnosed with stage 2 pancreatic cancer earlier that January — as Maria Menounos was awaiting the arrival of her and husband Keven Undergaro's first child via surrogate. Instead of focusing solely on preparing for their daughter's birth and throwing a baby shower in celebration, she underwent surgery to remove a mass on her pancreas and spent some time recovering at the hospital. "I was feeling so good, and then I got slapped in the face with a new diagnosis," the "ET" host informed People. "I'd scream out loud, I was inconsolable."

The ordeal began after she learned in 2022 that she had Type 1 diabetes. But she soon began to experience symptoms that weren't consistent with Type 1 diabetes, such as "excruciating abdominal pain coupled with diarrhea." An MRI later confirmed that these were being caused by pancreatic cancer. Fortunately, it was caught early, and she was declared cancer-free following the surgery. According to Maria , she has her late mother to thank for it. She explained to E! News that a year after her death, she enlisted the help of a medium to communicate with Litsa Menounos, who was apparently worried about her daughter's health. 

"She was like, 'Maria's not focusing enough on her health,'" Maria detailed. She then got the MRI, which confirmed her mom's alleged concerns. "I feel lucky to be alive," the prolific media personality added. "My mom sent me a signal from the other side. I know she's actively protecting and taking care of me."

Maria Menounos and her husband Keven Undergaro welcomed their daughter Athena in June 2023 with the help of a surrogate, fulfilling their longtime dream of becoming parents. However, it followed a decade of infertility struggles, IVF treatments, and surrogacy failures to reach this point. Over the years, the former E! News correspondent has been refreshingly open about her fertility journey. She posted on Facebook in 2016, writing, "After months [and] months of Ivf treatments and not feeling myself...I am happy to be able to post this picture [and] say I feel like me again. It takes its toll on you physically [and] emotionally. Hell I spent an entire episode of my @siriusxmstars show crying one day [because] of it all!"

After Menounos' 2017 brain tumor surgery, she and Undergaro began pursuing surrogacy instead of a pregnancy. "I would like to explore [using a] surrogate because her body has been through hell. I want a baby desperately, but I don't want it to be at the risk of her health," he clarified during a 2018 interview with People. But their surrogacy journey proved to be not only "super costly" but also "super emotionally taxing," with the couple receiving bad news after bad news, including being told their first surrogate wasn't going to work out and that they had to find another one. 

"I definitely didn't think it was going to take this long. It's been years. We've used different services, different people," Menounos sadly admitted to People in 2022. "It's just been a very frustrating process." In fact, she and her husband had almost given up when they received the long-awaited good news. Finally, in February 2023, the happy couple announced that they were expecting their first baby together.

Maria Menounos had been looking forward to being a mom for at least a decade before her daughter Athena entered the world in 2023, so it's no surprise she was over the moon when she and Keven Undergaro finally got to bring her home. In August 2023, about six weeks after Athena's birth, Menounos shared a photo on Instagram of her proudly holding her baby girl (without revealing her face) while wearing a T-shirt that read simply: "Mother." In the caption, she expressed her joy over expanding their family, writing: "Motherhood is going great. Athena is an Angel. [...] I'm so in love it's crazy." The media personality also gushed about finally getting to be a mom to People later that December: "I think the space I'm in right now is just overjoyed. I'm just so happy. I could float. I think I could levitate." 

Unfortunately, some members of Menounos' inner circle rained on her parade. During a January 2025 appearance on the "Women in the Nude" podcast, she disclosed that she stopped being friends with an unnamed individual who shamed her for going the surrogacy route because she wasn't able to carry her child herself. "She said to my husband, 'What do you mean she can't carry? That doesn't make any sense,'" Menounos recalled. She immediately severed ties with the friend after she caught wind of her comments. "It's one thing to be judged by outside people who don't know and don't get it. But you actually know me, and you know what we've gone through. For you to even say anything so judgmental is just crazy to me," Menounos reasoned.