Highly-Anticipated ‘Today’ Guest Missed Show Due to Illness

One hotly-anticipated guest of the Today show had to postpone his appearance on the NBC show last week.

While Dawson’s Creek alum James Van Der Beek has been battling colorectal cancer for two years now, his illness wasn’t the reason he missed his appearance on the popular daytime talk show.

Instead, the postponed appearance was due to his daughter being sick, as he explained on his Instagram story.

“Tell me you have kids without telling me you have kids. Having to postpone @today show appearance because of pink eye,” he wrote, with a selfie of him and one of his daughters. He continued by apologizing to his fans, to Today, and to host Craig Melvin for having to miss his appearance before finishing with “Pink eye(s) almost cleared up… See you Dec. 17.”

The former Dawson’s Creek star currently shares six kids with his wife Kimberly.

In September, he was supposed to be at a reunion event for Dawson’s Creek, the teen drama which made him a household name for playing main character Dawson Leery from 1998 to 2003. Unfortunately, he had to drop out due to illness.

“This is the evening I’d been looking forward to MOST since my angel Michelle Williams said she was putting it together, way back in January…” he wrote on Instagram at the time. “So you can imagine how gutted I was when two stomach viruses conspired to knock me out of commission and keep me grounded at the worst possible moment.”

He ended up making an appearance at the event anyway thanks to a pre-recorded video, where he told attendees that they’re “the best fans in the world.”