ET was with the star on set after the daytime series' whopping four-season renewal.
It's all good news for Eric Braeden these days. The 83-year-old The Young and the Restless star is offering a health update to ET after announcing that he was cancer-free back in August.
"My cancer diagnosis right now is on hold, as it were, and [I'm] very grateful for very good doctors and very good modern cancer treatment which has improved enormously," Braeden told ET's Cassie DiLaura during a February visit to the set of his soap opera. "People shouldn't be afraid of it, you know. Just go and have your cystoscopy, have your colonoscopy, have you heart checked out. Do all that, do it in time."
The celebrated, German-born soap legend -- who has starred as Victor Newman in over 4,000 episodes of The Young and the Restless since he joined the cast in 1980 -- revealed his cancer diagnosis in April 2023. At the time, he told ET that he was sharing the news in an effort to "inform people" about managing their own health.
In August, after undergoing a series of treatments, Braeden announced that his cancer was gone.
"It's funny, I don't react immediately to things. I react afterwards," he recently told ET. "On the way home, I thought, 'Keep on looking at it step by step.' That's good advice for anything you do in life. Don't anticipate the result, don't think way ahead. No, take it step by step."
Fans can look ahead to many new episodes of The Young and the Restless, as CBS renewed the beloved daytime drama in February for a whopping four seasons. That puts the series, which debuted in 1973 and is CBS' longest-running program, firmly on the air through the year 2028.
"I was very happy because it's obviously a testament to the fact that people still watch it," he said of the renewal. "Very lucky considering there are so many unemployed people in Hollywood. Very, very lucky."
He also offered a heartfelt "big thank you" to the fans who continue to support the show and its cast.
Now, Braeden and co-star Melody Thomas Scott are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first wedding between their characters.
"When I came here, I signed for three months. I said, 'I won't do any longer than that,'" Braden recalled. "And the rest is a 44-year history. Isn't that something?"
Braeden admitted he was initially wary of the "enormous amount of dialogue" he was tasked with learning for the show but "learned to love it."
"It's a pressure cooker unlike any in Hollywood," he shared.
As for what has kept him hooked, he said, "The challenge of making the stuff real."
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