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Article IndexFawcett said she was not surprised that none have come forward to discuss it. Some don't want to draw renewed attention to the procedures they had performed. Complaining, Fawcett said, would have been fodder for the tabloids.
Even as her illness progressed, Fawcett was followed by paparazzi, including when she traveled to Germany for treatments. When she returned to LAX in March, after her most recent trip to Germany, photographers snapped pictures as she was taken to her car in a wheelchair.
"I'm a private person," she said in the interview. "I'm shy about people knowing things. And I'm really shy about my medical [care]. It would be good if I could just go and heal and then when I decided to go out, it would be OK."
"It seems that there are areas that should be off-limits."
The interview was conducted in August on condition that The Times delay publication until it received permission from Fawcett or Craig Nevius, an executive producer of the upcoming documentary, "Farrah's Story," which chronicles Fawcett's struggle to recover and maintain her privacy. "There will be a good time, and what I have to say then will be more important," she said at the time.
On April 29, Nevius gave written permission for the interview to be published within five days of the documentary's broadcast date. The documentary is scheduled for broadcast on NBC on Friday. The Times' interview with Fawcett was videotaped for possible inclusion in the documentary.
Fawcett's condition has deteriorated since the time of the interview — the cancer has spread to her liver — and she is now bedridden and has lost her hair, her longtime companion Ryan O’Neal told People magazine on May 4. Her treatment has essentially stopped, he said.
During the interview, Fawcett was focused and thoughtful, openly pondering the impact she wanted to have in several areas, including patient privacy and alternative treatments for cancer.
"I'm holding onto the hope that there is some reason that I got cancer and there is something — that may not be very clear to me right now — but that I will do," she said.
Ornstein reported much of this story while on staff at The Los Angeles Times. He is now a senior reporter at ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative reporting newsroom in New York.
