Porsha Williams Reveals She Had Emergency Partial Hysterectomy After Doctors Found 21 Uterine Fibroids

Porsha Williams is opening up about the health scare that led her to undergo an emergency partial hysterectomy.

The Real Housewives of Atlanta star, 45, revealed during an appearance on CBS Mornings on Friday, Sept. 18, that doctors discovered 21 uterine fibroids in May, including one she said had grown to the size of a cantaloupe.

For Williams, the diagnosis came at a particularly difficult time: She had been considering having another child.

“I’ve always fantasized about having a little boy, or maybe a little sister for her,” Williams told Gayle King, referring to her 7-year-old daughter, Pilar Jhena.

What happened next was unexpected. Williams had accompanied a friend to an appointment to discuss freezing her eggs when she decided to get checked herself, since they were visiting her own fertility doctor. But as the doctor performed the exam, Williams could tell something was wrong.

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

Williams knew what she was seeing, since fibroids had caused serious complications for her years earlier.

Uterine fibroids are common, noncancerous growths of the uterus that often appear during a person’s reproductive years, according to the Mayo Clinic. Symptoms can include heavy or painful periods, pelvic, stomach or lower back pain, frequent urination, constipation and pain during sex.

This time, Williams was quickly referred to a fertility specialist. “When she did the vaginal check, she was in shock because everything had pretty much flattened,” Williams recalled.

The specialist sent her for an MRI within hours and scheduled surgery for approximately two weeks later. Williams said the imaging showed that she had 21 fibroids, including one the size of a cantaloupe.

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

The reality star and Go Naked Hair owner had experienced symptoms before her diagnosis, including unusually prolonged menstrual bleeding, migraines, severe fatigue and mood swings. But at 45, she initially attributed the changes to perimenopause, as her menstrual cycle had stretched to approximately six weeks.

It never occurred to her that she could be facing fibroids a second time.

Williams was first diagnosed with the condition in her late 20s while experiencing fertility issues. After she became pregnant, doctors discovered a fibroid that they initially believed might degenerate as the pregnancy progressed. Instead, Williams said, it continued growing.

“It ended up outgrowing the first baby at 4 months, so I had a miscarriage,” she said.

Williams subsequently underwent a myomectomy, a surgery to remove uterine fibroids while preserving the uterus. She also underwent fibroid embolization.

Luckily, when Williams became pregnant with Pilar — whom she welcomed in March 2019 — the fibroid she had at the time did degenerate.

After going through a divorce and raising Pilar with what she described as a strong support system, Williams had begun thinking seriously about expanding her family again. Instead, the May discovery ultimately led to her partial hysterectomy, ending the possibility of Williams carrying another pregnancy herself.

Now recovering from the procedure, Williams said she is sharing her experience in hopes that other women won’t dismiss changes in their bodies or assume they know what is causing them.

“We have to stop diagnosing ourselves,” she said. “There’s so many different things when it comes to a woman that you need to get checked. We need to know how to advocate for ourselves.”

The Mayo Clinic recommends seeing a healthcare professional for persistent pelvic pain, heavy periods that interfere with daily life, difficulty urinating, or ongoing tiredness or weakness. Severe vaginal bleeding or sudden, sharp pelvic pain require immediate medical attention.

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Williams said that despite previously speaking publicly about her struggles with fibroids, discussing her hysterectomy has been more difficult. “I don’t know, there’s some stigma talking about having a hysterectomy,” she said. “I’ve always spoken about fibroids, but speaking about the hysterectomy is new.”

She also wondered whether hearing another woman tell a similar story might have prompted her to seek answers sooner.

“If I would have seen somebody like me sitting here with you talking about fibroids, it would have clicked something for me to even ask for it,” Williams said. “I had to ask my doctor to check for fibroids after something was going on that was wrong.”