Marlyne Barrett, who stars on NBC’s Chicago Med as cancer survivor Nurse Maggie Lockwood, has recently shared that she is also battling cancer in real life.
Back in season 5 of Chicago Med, Maggie was diagnosed with metastatic adenocarcinoma. Over the season she treated the cancer and by the end of the season she was losing her hair from chemotherapy. Now life is imitating art and Barrett has revealed to People that she was diagnosed with uterine and ovarian cancer in July.
The mother of 11-month-old twins explained to People that she underwent hernia repair in April and didn’t feel well after that. “I had this accumulation of fluid [in my abdomen] that I couldn’t shake,” she explained. “I looked like I was nine months pregnant. And I also had shortness of breath, but no pain, which was interesting.”
A few months later on July 18, 2022, doctors informed Barrett that she had a football-sized tumor on her ovary and uterus; the actress was understandably shocked by the news. “The initial experience was a shock, a shock to my womanhood,” said Barrett, “I didn’t believe them, but when they showed me the CT scan, I went, ‘Oh my word.’ The first questions were, ‘Am I going to live?’ I just fell into my husband’s arms. It still takes my breath away when I think about it.”
Barrett credits her Chicago Med character and fans who were diagnosed with cancer for inspiring her to share her diagnosis.
“I’m an extremely private person, but I felt a responsibility to tell my story,” said Barrett, “When my character went through breast cancer, I had a sea of people reach out to me through social media. They brought me courage, and so I felt a sense of inevitability to meet their hearts where they met me.”
Just as her character empowered viewers with cancer when she took off her wig on Chicago Med exposing her hair loss from chemotherapy, Barrett empowered her fans when she posted a photo of herself with her freshly clean shaven head along with a screen shot of the People magazine headline on her official Instagram account:
“My hair has always been an essence of beauty,” Barrett said. “But I took my own razor, and I shaved my head. I did it in front of my babies so they’d see it was still Mommy. I wept, I wept, I wept. But it was a beautiful experience to do it in front of them.”
Barrett is continuing to work through her treatments and Chicago Med is currently filming season 8. She explained that she’s been leaning on her Med co-stars for support when necessary and is making accommodations for herself which include going to work early and allowing herself to take naps and occasional days off when needed.
She explained how supported she feels by the cast and crew, “because of the mass, my mid-range is a different size, so the costume department does an incredible job. Interestingly enough, my character on the show already wears a wig!” She continued, “work brings me a lot of joy right now. It brings me a lot of reprieve to think about something other than, ‘When is my next chemo shift?’ and ‘How am I going to hug my children?'”
Barrett has her third round of chemotherapy at City of Hope in Los Angeles coming up, and she says she’s taking her treatment and recovery “one day at a time.”
Chicago Med airs on Wednesdays, at 7 PM CST on NBC and streaming on Peacock on Thursdays.
Chicago Med is produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with Wolf Entertainment. Filmed at Cinespace Chicago Film Studio.
