Katie Couric is trading her hospital gown for “great jeans.”
The self-described “screen queen” is revisiting the legendary moment when she received an on-air colonoscopy on the “Today” show, two years after her husband Jay Monahan died from colon cancer.
Poking fun at Sydney Sweeney‘s controversial American Eagle ad, the journalist teamed up with the Colorectal Cancer Alliance and Ryan Reynolds‘ production company Maximum Effort for a PSA encouraging people to get screened for colorectal cancer, regardless of whether they are genetically vulnerable to the disease.
The cheeky spot opens with Couric in a hospital bed, sporting a Sweeney-inspired jean jacket, saying, “Speaking of jeans, did you know the majority of people who develop colon cancer are not genetically predisposed to the disease? That’s why doctors recommend everyone 45 and older get checked.” Couric adds in a slightly suggestive tone, “Mine are televised,” before she dismisses the clinician’s request to have her camera crew back off.
Couric says she had fun shooting the ad with Reynolds’ “clever and talented” team, saying she enjoyed making fun of herself in the process. “I had more makeup than I’ve worn for probably five years,” she said. “I tried to be a little fetching and a little seductive, which was also pretty funny.”
Reflecting on the “Today” show screening 25 years ago, Couric said she wanted to do the spot because the importance of screenings “bears repeating.” She said that screening, referencing a 2003 study, led to an increase of colonoscopies by 20 percent, dubbed the “Katie Couric Effect.”
She called the impact on public awareness “incredible and gratifying.”
“I think it was one of the first times that a journalist or a public figure had really undergone a medical procedure on national television,” she said. “I hope that I was instrumental in destigmatizing both the disease and the fact that you can get screened for colon cancer. It’s one of those cancers that is highly preventable if it’s caught early.”
Couric’s late husband, lawyer and NBC News legal analyst Jay Monahan, died in 1998 after a colon cancer diagnosis in early 1997. She has been a spokeswoman for colon cancer awareness ever since. Her advocacy has extended to other cancers: She received a mammogram on “Today” in 2005, nearly two decades before her breast cancer diagnosis. She also helped launch “The Alex Trebek Fund” with the late Jeopardy host’s widow, to fund pancreatic cancer research.
Reflecting on that first “fairly unusual” screening, she said audiences gravitated to the segment as they recognized her sincerity amid her loss.
“I think because people understood that my motives were very pure, that I had experienced this tremendous loss and I wanted to help prevent it from happening to other families, that it added an additional level to the importance of the messaging, if you will.”
The Katie Couric Media cofounder adds that, in addition to the Lead From Behind campaign ad encouraging audiences 45 and older to get screened, she’s also concerned about the increase in diagnoses for younger people.
“By 2030, the number of people under 50 with colorectal cancer is going to double. So we need to not only make sure that people 45 and over get screened, but we need to start really trying to understand what’s happening in these younger people,” she said. “And perhaps developing a less invasive test that they can do. Because it is such a tragedy when young people are diagnosed with this disease, and they didn’t have an opportunity to get screened and prevent it from spreading.”
Couric’s ad follows similarly comical campaign spots from Reynolds and Rob Mac as well as Terry Crews, which she thinks are particularly powerful because of their use of humor.
She adds: “I hope it’ll get people talking and more importantly, I hope it will get people calling their doctors and making appointments.”
