Khloe Kardashian has revealed that what she thought was a zit on her face turned out to be melanoma.
Kardashian, 38, and her family navigate the implications of the diagnosis during the latest episode of The Kardashians, a Hulu series that follows the high-profile members of the celebrity Kardashian-Jenner family.
“Khloe has a little bit of a history with melanoma and cancerous lesions, so this on her face is very concerning to me,” Khloe’s mother Kris Jenner, 67, says to her step-sister Kylie Jenner, 25, during the episode.
Kylie responds that her older sister had “this little bump and she was trying to remove it, and she’s like, ‘it just won’t go away,’ so to find out it’s melanoma is obviously really scary and I just hope that everything’s gonna be OK.”
Kardashian decided to have a biopsy on the bump on her face, despite thinking it was a “zit”.
“I have done one biopsy on this bump that I just assumed was a zit, turns out it’s not a zit,” she says during the episode. “It’s melanoma and for my age, it’s incredibly rare.”
Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that can spread to other areas of the body, according to the NHS. The main cause of melanoma is ultraviolet light, which comes from the sun and is used in sunbeds.
“Melanoma is deadly,” Kardashian said in a trailer for the show. “This is way more serious than I anticipated it to be.”
Factors that increase the chances of getting melanoma include age and having pale skin, a large number of moles and a family history of skin cancer.
Karshasian first opened up about her skin cancer scare in October 2022 and shared the news on her Instagram Story, featuring close-up photos of her skin.
She said at the time that she was “grateful” that the margins now “appear clear” and she was in the “healing process”.
“So, here we are… you’ll continue to see my bandages and when I’m allowed, you’ll probably see a scar (and an indentation in my cheek from the tumour being removed) but until then I hope you enjoy how fabulous I’m making these face bandages look.”
Kardashian also urged her followers to get frequent checkups by recounting a past incident where doctors found a cancerous mole on her back.
“At 19 years old, I had melanoma on my back, and I had a surgery to remove that as well, so I am pre-composed to melanomas,” she said of that experience. “Even those who are not, we should be checking all the time.”
“I am someone who wears sunscreen every single day religiously so no one is exempt from these things. Please take this seriously and do regular self-exams as well as your annual checkups.”
The Kardashians season three is streaming on Hulu now.
