She has already fought and survived cancer once, so when reality television show matriarch Sharon Osbourne found out she could be at risk again, she said she wasn’t up for taking chances.
The former X-Factor judge spoke to Hello! magazine this week and has revealed she underwent a double mastectomy as a precaution against breast cancer, a whole decade after she won her fight against colon cancer.
The 60-year-old said she made the decision to remove both her breasts after finding out she carries a gene which increases the chance of breast cancer.
“As soon as I found out I had the breast cancer gene, I thought, ‘The odds are not in my favour’”, she said.
“I’ve had cancer before and I didn’t want to live under that cloud. I decided to just take everything off, and had a double mastectomy.’”
The 13-hour operation, which can take between three to six weeks to recover from, was approved by her doctor after she made the discovery.
Mrs Osbourne said genetic tests showed she had inherited a gene fault which increased the risk of breast cancer.
Some people with these gene faults, who often have a strong family history of the disease, can have a 45 to 65 per cent chance of developing breast cancer before the age of 70.
Sharon reveals all in this week’s Hello! magazine cover interview.
British celebrity Michelle Heaton is another woman in the public eye who has spoken out about her decision to have a mastectomy.
“For me, it wasn’t a big decision, it was a no-brainer,” Sharon said, “I didn’t want to live the rest of my life with that shadow hanging over me.
“I want to be around for a long time and be a grandmother to Pearl. I didn’t even think of my breasts in a nostalgic way, I just wanted to be able to live my life without that fear all the time.”
The strong-willed star also said she did not spend any time feeling sorry for herself.
“It’s not “pity me”, it’s a decision I made that’s got rid of this weight that I was carrying around.”
The Osbourne mum also spoke out about her breast implants to the magazine. She described how breast implants to increase her chest size to 34DD had leaked into her stomach wall.
The gorgeous 60-year-old poses for photos for the first time after her operation.
In a 2010 interview she said she regretted having them and said it was ‘like having a waterbed on your chest’. Last year, Sharon revealed that she had been forced to remove the implants after discovering that they were actually faulty.
Sharon, once the face of plastic surgery, said the faulty implants has put her off getting any more work done.
“Sometimes I’ll see a photo and I’ll think, “My face looks plastic”; it can look so unnatural from certain angles. Now I am definitely, definitely done. You can’t buy your youth back, no matter how much money you’ve got. I won’t be going under the knife again.”
Sharon has spent a massive €375,000 on cosmetic surgery.
The reality TV mum has used her place in the spotlight to campaign for greater awareness of colon cancer after she was diagnosed with it in 2002.
She survived against a 33 per cent survival prognosis and founded the Sharon Osbourne Colon Cancer Program at Cedars Sinai Hospital in California two years later.
We have major respect for this woman…
