Holly Marie Combs is candidly speaking about how she faced having a tumor that was "the size of a baseball" while filming the popular 1998 drama series Charmed.
"They had found a rather large tumor in my uterus during this season, and it kept growing at a rate that was not healthy," explained the 49-year-old actress, while discussing the show's 21st episode on the latest installment of The House of Halliwell podcast.
Since there was a fear that the tumor was cancerous, Combs noted that the series stopped filming for two weeks while she underwent surgery.
Combs added that after the show returned to production, her character was sitting in many scenes because it was difficult to walk. However, the experience served to bring the cast closer together.
"We got very close, all of us, during this time," said Combs. "Shannen [Doherty] would leave my hospital room, and Alyssa [Milano] and her mom would come in. When I went home, Alyssa's mom had made me chicken soup and food for the week because it was a really major surgery. The girls really pulled together during this time for me."
Charmed would go on to run for eight seasons on The WB from 1998 to 2006 with Combs, Doherty, and Milano starring as three sisters who discover they are witches and choose to use their powers to fight evil forces.
Combs revealed during the recent podcast episode that she is looking forward to getting two more benign tumors that developed removed, but "doesn't advertise it a lot" because she is thinking of privacy in regards to the show and its legacy.
"I'm very protective of the show and my part in it, but I'm also very protective of the moments that we had like this," she said.
"No one has any idea how much both Shannen and Alyssa did for me during this time. That's the s–-t that really bugs me. No one has any idea how much we went through behind the scenes, and how much we did together, and how close we were."
"Alyssa was in my hospital bed with me. I was like, 'You're on my catheter, kid, you've got to get off," remembered Combs.
Doherty, who played big sister Prue Halliwell on the series, has had her own well-documented health battles, having struggled with breast cancer since 2015.
