Wanda Sykes

In September 2011, Sykes revealed that earlier in the year, she had gone in for breast reduction surgery and discovered that she had very early-stage breast cancer. Because of a history of breast cancer in her family, she decided to have a bilateral mastectomy (both breasts removed).

[on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003) after the passage of Proposition 8, which took away the right to gay marriage in California] Here in California, the one that's important to me is Prop 8. What broke my heart, you know--I'm watching the news, and there were, you know, like, a lot of the black churches got together, and they were rallying, you know, they were FOR Prop 8; I'm like, come on--it's discrimination! I mean, discrimination is discrimination. And of all people, black people should know discrimination and you're going to vote and get discrimination in the Constitution? I mean, that's . . . I know African-Americans, they get upset. They're like, "Black and gay, that's totally different things. We had it hard." And I'm like, "Yeah, I get it. I'm black. I know. I get it". You know. But there's things that gay people have to go through that black people didn't have to go through. I never had to come out black. Never had to sit my family down and tell them about my blackness. Have a little talk with my employer, let him know about my "black lifestyle". Mom, dad, I gotta tell you something. Hope you still love me. I'm black. You know, and my mother: "Not black, Lord! Anything but black, Jesus! Anything but black! What did I do, what did I do? It was Soul Train (1971), wasn't it? I shouldn't have let you watch 'Soul Train'." "No, ma, that's just me--I mean, I just feel like I was born black". "No, you weren't born black. The bible says Adam and Eve; it doesn't say Adam and Mary J. Blige".