Joe Amabile said doctors found a blueberry-sized lesion on his brain after an MRI, and he now says it looks to be a glioma. He said the tumor was caught at a really early stage and that he will have a craniotomy in two weeks to remove it and test it.
That makes the diagnosis public now, not later, and it explains why readers are searching his name today. Amabile wrote that he is trying to remain hopeful, saying he has a lot of support from family and friends as he heads toward surgery.
He also said he went back and forth about sharing the news on social media, but decided this is now part of his life. For a public figure who has spent years in the franchise world, the turn from personal update to medical plan is sudden and plain: something was found, and it is serious enough to require brain surgery soon.
The medical uncertainty is part of what makes the story hard to read cleanly. Gliomas are brain tumors that can be non-cancerous and slow-growing or cancerous and fast-growing, and they can also invade healthy brain tissue; being found at a really early stage helps, but it does not answer what the tissue will show once it is tested.
Amabile said the craniotomy will take place at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and that procedure is meant to remove the tumor and send it for testing. What comes next is not a vague wait for more news but an operating room in two weeks, followed by the test that will determine what doctors are dealing with.
Amabile is known as Grocery Store Joe from Becca Kufrin's season of The Bachelorette, and he later appeared on two seasons of Bachelor in Paradise, where he got engaged to Serena Pitt. He and Pitt also hosted Bachelor Happy Hour and now have their own podcast, Not Married To This.
He said this is now part of his life. The next chapter will be written by the surgery and the test results that follow it.
