Donna Schlessinger, of Paramount+’s ‘The Real Wolf of Wall Street’ and host of the new podcast The Donnasphere, has spent the past few years unraveling a family mystery she never knew existed. Here, she shares how an at-home DNA test, an unexpected discovery and a routine breast MRI ultimately led to one of the biggest decisions of her life.
It all started with a DNA test. My husband, David, had been telling me since 1990 that there was something about my family background that didn’t add up. I grew up in a Jewish family in Brooklyn. My grandfather was a kosher butcher. As far as I was concerned, there wasn’t much to debate.
Then, in 2018, David bought us 23andMe kits. We spit into the tubes, sent them off and waited. When my results came back, I was 99.6 percent Ashkenazi Jewish. I couldn’t have been more pleased. I was right. He was wrong. End of story. Except it wasn’t.
A Match I Couldn’t Explain
As DNA relatives began popping up, most were distant enough that I didn’t give them much thought. Then one appeared who shared 13.6 percent of my DNA. I had no idea who this person was, but that percentage was enough to make me curious.
We started comparing notes. We had connections to Brooklyn and Boca Raton, and enough coincidences to keep me interested, but nothing that explained how we could possibly be related. Eventually, the trail went cold. COVID happened. Life happened. I put it aside.
Around the same time, I was continuing something I’d been doing for years: keeping a very close eye on my breast health. I had mammograms, sonograms and regular breast MRIs because I believed breast cancer ran in my family. Getting those MRIs approved was often a production. Insurance would deny them, my doctor would fight for them and somehow we would get them done.
Then, in 2025, an MRI was approved without the usual fight. Ironically, that was the one that found something.
The MRI That Changed Everything
I needed an MRI-guided biopsy, and the result was lobular carcinoma in situ, or LCIS. LCIS is a noncancerous breast condition, but it meant my risk of developing invasive breast cancer in the future was higher.
I went from my regular screening routine to appointments with a breast surgeon and genetic counselor. Suddenly we were talking about risk, family history and what I wanted to do with information that couldn’t tell me exactly what my future held.
Because there were gaps in what I knew about my family medical history, I decided to undergo genetic testing. I was tested for 21 genes associated with hereditary cancer risk, including BRCA1 and BRCA2. Then came four very long weeks of waiting. Everything came back negative.
That was wonderful news, but I still had LCIS and a decision to make. I could continue with close surveillance and discuss other risk-reducing options with my doctors, or I could have a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy.
For me, it eventually came down to one thought: I knew I would never regret doing it, but I could regret not doing it. So I chose the mastectomy.
But Here’s the Twist
There’s an important part of this story I haven’t told you yet.
Back in 2020, two years after that 23andMe test, my father became seriously ill. He was 88 and in the throes of dementia. I flew to Florida to be with him, and during that time he revealed something my parents had kept from me for 53 years. He wasn’t my biological father.
What I didn’t know until later was that my mother had no idea my father knew I was not his biological child. Aside from voicing suspicions about my paternity during their divorce, he never told her or anyone else that he knew for certain. He had carried that secret my entire life. My mother only found out that he knew when I asked her about it.
Suddenly, that mysterious DNA match wasn’t so mysterious anymore.
I eventually hired a private investigator and found my biological family, opening an entirely new chapter of my life. But the discovery also meant something important for my health: Half of the medical history I had believed was mine for my entire life wasn’t biologically mine at all.
That included the breast-cancer history that had helped make me so vigilant about screening.
I still can’t quite get over that part. I had spent years getting breast MRIs, in part, because I believed my father’s mother had breast cancer. It turned out she wasn’t my biological grandmother. Yet one of those MRIs found the LCIS that changed the course of my life.
Saying Goodbye to My Breasts
There was another strange coincidence. Before my LCIS diagnosis, I already had cosmetic breast surgery scheduled for May 5. After 57 years, I was ready to firm things up and make my breasts a little more manageable.
Then I got my diagnosis, and suddenly the breasts I’d been perfectly willing to change were the ones I desperately wanted to keep.
I canceled the cosmetic surgery and scheduled my mastectomy for the exact same date. The process wasn’t easy. I ultimately went through four surgeries, but today I’m back to playing golf, traveling and living my life. I’ll never know whether breast cancer would have been in my future, and I’m OK with not knowing.
Finding My Donnasphere
I started writing about my experiences on Substack, and something unexpected happened. People started reaching out. Women shared their own health scares, DNA discoveries, family secrets and stories they hadn’t necessarily felt comfortable talking about before.
Those conversations made me realize how many of us are walking around with stories that don’t fit neatly into small talk. Sometimes one piece of information can completely change the way you see your health, your family or even yourself.
That curiosity and connection eventually grew into The Donnasphere, my new podcast, where I get to keep having those conversations and asking the questions I’ve found myself asking over the past few years: Who am I? Where do I belong? And what happens when the story you’ve always known changes suddenly?
My mastectomy was my decision, made with my doctors and based on what I knew about my own health and risk. Someone else might make a completely different choice.
But when I look back at how I arrived at mine, I can’t help but laugh at where it all began: My husband ordering a DNA test because he was convinced there was something about my family I didn’t know. After all these years, I have to give him this one.
