Farrah Fawcett’s Cancer Has Returned

It’s bad enough when you have to fight cancer the first time, let alone having it return and trying to ward off the vultures from the tabloids.

Farrah Fawcett, who was declared cancer-free in February, discovered this week the cancer has returned, PEOPLE has confirmed.

“She was completely devastated at first,” says her close friend Craig Nevius, who produced the Chasing Farrah reality show. “And then, as is her way – as was the case the last time – she became much stronger and started dealing with it, and she’s beginning to make a plan.”

Fawcett got the news after a routine three-month checkup in which doctors discovered a malignant polyp, smaller than a pea, says Nevius.

She was still weighing her treatment options when the National Enquirer reported the cancer’s return.

“She didn’t have a chance to tell some of her family yet,” says Nevius. “It is now clear that the tabloids are as invasive and malignant as cancer.”