Julia Louis-Dreyfus announces breast cancer diagnosis

Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been diagnosed with breast cancer, she announced Thursday.

The Veep star posted an Instagram to share the news, captioned “Just when you thought…”:

“The good news is that I have the most glorious group of supportive and caring family and friends, and fantastic insurance through my union,” Louis-Dreyfus wrote in her announcement. “The bad news is that not all women are so lucky, so let’s fight all cancers and make universal health care a reality.” She ended the brief note with a signature.

A source confirms to EW that Louis-Dreyfus received her diagnosis the Monday following the Emmy Awards, and that it had no part in the decision to make the upcoming season of Veep the show’s last. Writers are continuing to work and the production schedule will be adjusted to accommodate the star as needed.

Louis-Dreyfus most recently made history at the Emmy Awards this month, nabbing her sixth trophy in a row for her work on HBO’s Veep and tying Cloris Leachman’s record eight Emmy wins by a singular performer. “We have a great final season that we’re about to start filming with a lot of surprises that our fabulous writers have cooked up,” the actress said in her acceptance speech. “We did have a whole story line about an impeachment, but we abandoned that because we were worried that someone else might get to it first.”

Veep will return for its seventh and final season in 2018.

—Additional reporting by Lynette Rice