Tragic Details About The Life Of CNN's Christiane Amanpour

Christiane Amanpour has long been one of the most recognizable faces in news media, and she's certainly been given the recognition she deserves over the years. However, that's not to say she hasn't endured her share of devastating lows. On the contrary, between witnessing atrocities play out in real time and ill health, Amanpour has been through a lot. 

While Amanpour was born in England, her father was Iranian, and she spent the bulk of her childhood in his country. She's long referred to those early years as idyllic, telling Bloomberg, "My upbringing in Tehran was magical — very free." She was also raised to believe she could achieve anything she wanted to, so long as she worked for it. "There was never any question that anything was off-limits for my life." That was something she touched on during PBS's 2013 "Makers: Women Who Make America" as well. "I grew up seeing my mother and all her Persian friends (my mother being the foreigner, the English woman in Iran), able to be a woman in an Islamic country, and that was deeply affecting to me, because I never assumed, ever, that because I was a woman, anything was off-limits to me, and that was very empowering" she said (via Life Stories).

Of course, the 1979 revolution brought about a lot of changes. Amanpour told PBS that she witnessed a 180-degree shift overnight. A number of people she looked up to were thrown in prison or killed. Bringing the situation even closer to home, her uncle died mysteriously while in detention. "We never saw the body," she explained. Even so, Amanpour pointed out that the situation was an important moment for her, because she realized she wanted to be able to share what was happening with the rest of the world.

Christiane Amanpour has spent much of her career in very dangerous settings. Of course, she knew that going in. Speaking to O, The Oprah Magazine in 2005, she acknowledged that a combination of a no-nonsense horse riding instructor in her childhood (who made a point of putting her straight back in the saddle with no hesitation after a nasty fall) and witnessing the Iranian Revolution first-hand gave her a sense of fearlessness. "When you lose your country, when you lose everything important to you, when members of your family and friends are executed, when you go through a revolution, you survive with a certain level of fortitude," Amanpour explained. 

Even so, she did have a number of close brushes with death in the field. One came during the Bosnia genocide while she was in her hotel room. "I woke up to the incoming whistle of artillery," she told Oprah Winfrey. Amanpour tried to escape, but couldn't find her room's key. "I thought, 'Whatever happens, happens,'" she recounted. Ultimately, the howitzer that had been fired into a hotel room on her floor had malfunctioned, saving Amanpour and the others on her team's lives. 

Amanpour also told Winfrey that she and her team had survived a mortar attack after working on a story on the abandoned Sarajevo zoo. "We stayed just a little too long. The gunners on the hill figured out that we were there, and it started raining mortars. ... All I could keep saying to my crew was, 'If you die, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry,'" she recounted. Once again, they survived — though Amanpour quipped that all her apologies had served as a distraction from the possibility that she might die, herself. 

One of the reasons Christiane Amanpour continued to go into warzones even after her own life had been threatened is because she felt a duty to shine a light on what people were going through there. As she explained while accepting an award from the International Center for Journalists, "There is truth and there are lies, and we have to be brave enough to always call them out and always, always put ourselves on the line."

Even so, Amanpour has said on a few occasions that many of the things she witnessed as a war correspondent were understandably distressing. "In Bosnia, seeing children victims of this genocide was more than I could tolerate. It was really painful to see children who'd deliberately been scoped through a sniper's sights and killed. It's a kind of horror that you don't want to believe is possible," she explained in her interview with O, The Oprah Magazine. Amanpour added that after welcoming her first and only child with her ex-husband, her feelings about seeing the way children were treated in war zones only intensified. "When I became a mother, it was a thousand times more emotional for me. I cry when I go into hospitals and see children," she said. 

That was something Amanpour addressed in her appearance on "Makers: Women Who Make America" as well. "To this day, especially now as a mother, I ask myself, 'What kind of human being put in his cross hairs the head of a 5-year-old child and pulled the trigger?'" she said. Even so, she added that living alongside locals facing persecution had helped her and her colleagues bring attention to the matter, and also gave them a stronger foundation from which to criticize leaders who weren't doing enough.

Much of Christiane Amanpour's success has come as a result of her willingness to have tough conversations with political figures, but that's not to say she's gone without serious pushback. One of those times came in a 1994 CNN Global Forum when she called Bill Clinton out for describing the Bosnian genocide as "just a humanitarian catastrophe." She also accused Clinton and his government of "constant flip-flops" in their response to the genocide. Clinton kept his composure, but was visibly annoyed. In response to her question about other countries not taking him seriously because of those "flip-flops," Clinton revealed his shady side. He said that comments like hers were more likely to tarnish his reputation than anything his administration was doing. He also retorted, "There have been no flip-flops, madam." In a later appearance on "Makers," Amanpour credited him with continuing to take her questions later on in the forum and ultimately playing a role in the end of the genocide. 

Not all of the leaders Amanpour spoke to were quite as diplomatic. In a 2015 appearance on Talks with Google, she admitted that after a tense exchange with late Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat played out on live TV in 2002, she feared she might lose her job. As a brief refresher, Amanpour had asked for Arafat's response to the then-U.S. secretary of state asking him to de-escalate violence in Israel and whether he was able to do so (via Oterbulbul). Arafat responded by shouting, "Be quiet," prompting a very uncharacteristically animated expression from Amanpour. He slammed the phone down soon after. 

Speaking to Talks with Google, Amanpour quipped, "I thought this was terrible for my career." However, viewers found it entertaining, and her career was unscathed. 

In 2021, Christiane Amanpour announced during a live broadcast on CNN that she had sad health news to share. Starting off by thanking her colleagues for standing in for her while she took a few weeks off work, she explained, "Like millions of women around the world, I've been diagnosed with ovarian cancer." By the time of her announcement, Amanpour had already undergone surgery and was beginning her journey with chemotherapy. Far from trying to hide the scary diagnosis, she went on to say that she wanted to use her platform to highlight the importance of constant health check-ups, advocating for one's own health, and early diagnosis. Amanpour received a lot of well-wishes in the immediate aftermath and took to X to pen a heartfelt note. "Thank you all for your incredible support, I am riding your wave and it will carry me through," she wrote. 

Around 10 months later, Amanpour shared a happy update: she was in remission. Speaking to People, she revealed that the cyst her doctor had found had been the size of a grapefruit. She also reiterated the importance of early detection — even when medical professionals diminished patients' symptoms. "We women know better what's going on with our own bodies than anybody. We can trust ourselves. If there's something wrong, pursue it," she urged. 

Amanpour also used her People interview to issue a sweet shout-out to the loved ones who showed up for her when she needed it the most. She said that for the first time, she simply "let my friends and family take care of me." "I allowed myself to be vulnerable and feel those normal emotions," she added. 

Heartbreakingly, a few years after going into remission, Christiane Amanpour shared more devastating news. While featuring as a guest on "World Ovarian Cancer Coalition" in late October 2025, she revealed, "I have it again, but it's being very well-managed."

Amanpour went on to add that she hadn't been devastated by the news, as an expert had told her that cancer often returned but could be treated with the right care. As such, she said that when she was diagnosed with the illness again, "I sort of went into a zen mode, that 'It's a permanent condition, it has to be managed,' and as long as I'm fortunate enough to have the people who are managing it for me with my full cooperation ... I could deal with it physically and mentally."

Sadly, Amanpour also shared on "World Ovarian Cancer Coalition" that the cancer had returned more than once. "I obviously had all the relevant organs removed, but it came back a couple of times in a lymph node," she explained. The veteran journalist revealed that she was undergoing immunotherapy to combat that, and it hadn't been too hard on her body. On the contrary, she shared, "It's the opposite of grueling. I have no side effects." All that said, Amanpour finished off by saying that she was in an exceptionally privileged position to be able to do immunotherapy, and lamented the fact that not everyone else was able to access the same level of care. Amanpour has been through a lot over the years, but one thing that has remained constant is her willingness to bring attention to life-threatening issues, even putting herself on the frontlines to do so. We're wishing her well as she continues to manage her illness.