Angelina
Jolie says she underwent a preventive double mastectomy earlier this
year after learning she carries a gene that increases her risk of
developing bréast cancer and ovarian cancer.
In
a New York Times op-ed published late Monday, the 37-year-old Academy
Award winner writes that after genetic testing she learned she carries
the "faulty" BRCA1 gene.
Jolie,
whose mother died from cancer, says she decided to have the preventive
mastectomy to be "proactive" for the sake of her six children with her
partner, Brad Pitt.
"My
mother fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56," Jolie writes.
"She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to
hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance
to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was."
She said she has kept the process private so far, but wrote about with hopes of helping other women.
"I
wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a
mastectomy was not easy," she writes. "But it is one I am very happy
that I made. My chances of developing bréast cancer have dropped from 87
percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need
to fear they will lose me to bréast cancer."
She
is anything but private in the details she provides, giving a
step-by-step description of the procedures. She writes that between
early February and late April she completed three months of surgical
procedures to remove both bréasts.
"My
own process began on Feb. 2 with a procedure known as a `nipple
delay,"' she writes, "which rules out disease in the bréast ducts behind
the nipple and draws extra blood flow to the area."
She
then describes the major surgery two weeks later where bréast tissue
was removed, saying it felt "like a scene out of a science-fiction
film," then writes that nine weeks later she had a third surgery to
reconstruct the bréasts and receive implants."
Many
women have chosen preventive mastectomy since genetic screening for
bréast cancer was developed, but the move and public announcement is
unprecedented from a star so young and widely known as Jolie.
She briefly addresses the effects of the surgery on the idealized séxuality and iconic womanhood that have fueled her fame.
"I
do not feel any less of a woman," Jolie writes. "I feel empowered that I
made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity."
She
also wrote that Brad Pitt, her partner of eight years, was at the Pink
Lotus Bréast Center in Southern California for "every minute of the
surgeries."
Jolie,
daughter of Hollywood luminary Jon Voight, has appeared in dozens of
films including 2010's "The Tourist" and "Salt," the "Tomb Raider"
films, and 1999's "Girl, Interrupted," for which she won an Academy
Award.
But
she has appeared more often in the news in recent years for her power
coupling with Pitt and her charitable work with refugees as a United
Nations ambassador.
