Porsha Williams Underwent Emergency Partial Hysterectomy After Doctor Found 21 Fibroids

More women are normalizing conversations about health challenges to minimize shame and create greater awareness. Porsha Williams is the latest celebrity to come out and share her story about battling fibroids specifically. 

In an exclusive with CBS Mornings, the Real Housewives of Atlanta star told Gayle King she underwent an emergency partial hysterectomy this year. She has struggled with fibroids since she was in her late 20s but thought they were gone for good after undergoing a myomectomy. 

“I had symptoms but, you know, I’m 45 years old, and I’m thinking, oh, maybe perimenopause,” Williams recalled, mentioning long menstrual cycles, migraines, and fatigue she was most recently dealing with.

Williams learned the fibroids had regrown after following a friend who was freezing her eggs to the doctor and deciding to do an exam too. Despite feeling she wouldn’t be having any more kids because “I had a divorce. I had my child and I have a great support system,” she was intrigued about the possibility of maybe having one more child.  

“She started looking into, you know, doing the exam, and she went silent. And I looked at the screen, and all I could see was, like, black, and then I started seeing some circular lines. And I’m like, ‘Not again. Not again.’ They had come back,” Williams said.

The mother of one was immediately referred to a fertility specialist who did a vaginal exam a few days later and discovered a whopping 21 uterine fibroids. One was the size of a cantaloupe. She was referred for an MRI and two weeks later in May, had to undergo a partial hysterectomy. 

“It all happened so fast. It really didn’t hit me until I woke up in the hospital bed,” she said during the interview.

The TV personality initially learned she had fibroids when trying to conceive years ago and running into fertility challenges. 

“I had never really heard of them or thought of them. And then I went to the doctor, and I was pregnant, and that made her, again, do more checkups. She said, ‘There’s fibroid there,'” Williams explained.

By four months into her pregnancy, the fibroids outgrew her baby, resulting in a miscarriage. However, in 2019, she successfully gave birth to her daughter Pilar with former fiancé Dennis McKinney. Williams has learned about the importance of routine checkups and self-advocacy after her experiences.  

“We have to stop diagnosing ourselves. There are so many different things when it comes to a woman that you need to get checked, and we need to learn to advocate for ourselves,” Williams said. “If I saw somebody like me sitting here with you talking about fibroids, it would have clicked to ask for it. I had to ask my doctor to check for fibroids after something was wrong.”