Martina Navratilova appeared on Larry King Live Wednesday night to discuss her announcement that she was diagnosed with breast cancer in January. The out tennis star, who acknowledged that she let her regular schedule of mammograms slip, said that she went public with the news in order to encourage other women to be mindful of timely examinations.

“I had not realized it had been four years, I thought maybe it was two years since my last mammogram,” said Navratilova.

“I was lucky that this classification happened at the tail end of those four years rather than the beginning.”

Navratilova said that after surgery and now radiation, her odds for a complete recovery are “very good.”
 
In portions of the interview not yet available online, King asked Navratilova whether she encourages people to come out, and she replied that she does, although it remains a “personal choice.” She also said that she would have come out sooner, had it not been a roadblock to citizenship.

“I couldn’t come out until I became a citizen because it was actually a disqualifier at the time,” she said.

Watch the clip about breast cancer below.