Supermodel Linda Evangelista Opens Up About Breast Cancer Battles
By Movieguide® Contributor
Supermodel Linda Evangelista recently opened up about her fight with breast cancer.
In 2018, she told the Wall Street Journal, “It was detected in my annual mammogram. The margins were not good, and due to other health factors, without hesitation, because I wanted to put everything behind me and not to have to deal with this, I opted for a bilateral mastectomy. Thinking I was good and set for life. Breast cancer was not going to kill me.”
But, in 2022, Evangelista found out her breast cancer had returned, and she was again in the fight.
After her 2022 diagnosis, she told her oncologist to “dig a hole in my chest.”
“I don’t want it to look pretty. I want you to excavate. I want to see a hole in my chest when you’re done. Do you understand me? I’m not dying from this,” she declared, according to PEOPLE.
“I just went into this mode that I know how to do — just do what you’ve got to do and get through it,” she added. “And that’s what I did.”
Now, her oncologist says that her prognosis is “good.” However, the supermodel wondered, “Why isn’t it great?”
“Well, once it’s come back, there’s a chance,” her doctor told her.
Despite the uncertainty, Evangelista is grateful.
“I know I have one foot in the grave, but I’m totally in celebration mode,” she expressed. “I’ve come through some horrible health issues. I’m at a place where I’m so happy celebrating my book [Linda Evangelista Photographed by Steven Meisel], my life. I’m so happy to be alive. Anything that comes now is bonus.”
Evangelista also revealed why she kept her diagnosis a secret.
“I’ve kept it quiet. Only a handful of people knew. And I’m just not one of those people who has to share everything,” she admitted. “I thought to myself, I will share this one day but while I am going through it, absolutely not. I don’t want the Daily Mail waiting outside my door like they do every time something happens. ‘Linda seen for the first time since blah blah blah.’”
PEOPLE reported, “Part of doing this on her own terms is donating proceeds from her book with Meisel to breast cancer research. The book, out Sept. 13, is Meisel’s first retrospective monograph, and he told the outlet he only did it because ‘Linda asked.’”
