Jeanette Lee, the famous billiards player who earned the nickname “The Black Widow,” is in a fight for her life.
Lee, 49, has been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, she announced Wednesday. Her close friends started a GoFundMe page that revealed doctors said she had a few months to a year left to live
“I intend to bring the same resolve I brought to the billiards table to this fight,” Lee said in a statement, per the American Poolplayers Association. “Jim Valvano so eloquently told us to ‘Never give up’. I owe it to my three young daughters to do exactly that.”
Lee has already started chemotherapy and also has multiple surgeries ahead to try to slow the cancer. The GoFundMe established in her name intends to provide support for her three daughters: Cheyenne, 16, Chloe, 11, and Savannah, 10.
The Brooklyn native was the No. 1 female pool player in the world during the 1990s and won the gold medal at the 2001 World Games. She was the Women’s Professional Billiard Association (WPBA) Player of the Year in 1994 and the WPBA Sportsperson of the Year in 1998.
Lee has also long battled scoliosis, which cut her career short and may have initially masked her cancer, her GoFundMe suggested.
“She’s in a lot of pain all the time, anyway, so she didn’t notice any difference,” Lee’s longtime agent, Tom George, told the Washington Post.
