News Anchor, 38, Details Aggressive Brain Cancer Battle One Year After Diagnosis

Tori Carmen, a local news anchor in South Carolina, announced that she has been battling an aggressive brain cancer for more than a year.

“I thought I was dying,” Carmen, now 38, told People in an interview published on Thursday, March 26. “In the middle of the night on February 28, [2025,] I woke up screaming. I had a seizure. My whole right side locked up. I couldn’t move my leg…I was in so much pain. I couldn’t scream anymore. I just fell into darkness. It was like a black hole taking me under.”

She recalled receiving her diagnosis after being rushed to the hospital that evening.

“It was a gut punch,” Carmen said after doctors told her about the “mass” in her brain. “[The doctor] explained that it is a very common brain tumor that grows on the meninges, the outer lining of your brain. Usually, they are benign.”

It wasn’t until weeks after her craniotomy — which doctors said was successful, as they were able to fully remove the tumor — that pathology reports came back as “grade 3 meningioma, which is malignant.”

“Our worlds flipped upside down,” she said of finding out her diagnosis. “The diagnosis was a very aggressive brain cancer.”

She ultimately decided to do one round of gamma knife radiation, “which is one and done and more precise.”

Carmen has been back at work since June 2025, and had three MRIs in the months since.

“They’ve been good, they’ve been clear, and that’s amazing,” she told People.

She and her husband, Jeremy — who tied the knot at the sheriff’s office before her brain surgery — are planning a “do-over wedding” in May.

“We’re going to make it a big celebration of love, but also health and gratitude that we can all be together,” Carmen said.