Three years after being diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time, Linda Evangelista is taking every opportunity to proclaim the importance of cancer screenings. Most recently, the longtime supermodel, 58, posted a mammogram selfie that bared her chest in honor of Cancer Screening Week, the first full week of December.
“On behalf of @su2c and during #CancerScreeningWeek, I ask that everyone realize how important it is to schedule an appointment with your doctor to create a cancer screening plan that’s right for you,” she captioned the photo, in which one of her breasts was pressed between the X-ray machine’s glass plates. “Catching cancer or pre-cancer early can help save lives.”
Fans and followers thanked her for spreading the word. “Thank you for being a powerful voice and inspiration ♥️,” one person commented. “This is what courage looks like. Thank you, Linda! #girlpower,” another added. “Good on you @lindaevangelista for being so vulnerable in sharing your entire life story,” someone else wrote.
Evangelista went public with her breast cancer journey in an interview this September with WSJ. Magazine. A routine mammogram in 2018 first uncovered ductal carcinoma in situ, an early form of breast cancer, for which she underwent a bilateral mastectomy. In 2020, she learned the cancer had returned, after discovering a lump in her pectoral muscle. Treatment continued with more surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.
She is outspoken about her experience now, but kept it private in real time. “Only a handful of people knew. And I’m just not one of those people who has to share everything,” Evangelista said. “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.’”
Evangelista said her current prognosis is “good” in an October interview with The View, and added that Oncotype DX genetic testing revealed her chances for recurrent cancer were high—which is why she underwent multiple forms of treatment after it was found the second time.
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“Everybody’s story’s going to be nuanced,” she told hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar. “And mine ended up being, ‘We’ll just get it out and give you some radiation.’ But I had a really bad Oncotype score. It’s a score that tells you your probability of getting the cancer again. They take into account many many things, including genetics. But mine was bad.”
Now, Evangelista is on medication to ideally lower the odds of the cancer’s return. “I’m on fantastic meds for five years; they make you feel so good,” she said sarcastically. “They’re horrible. They’re hormone suppressors. They make you feel old.”
But she’ll take feeling old if that means staying alive. “I know I have one foot in the grave, but I’m totally in celebration mode,” she told WSJ. “I’m so happy to be alive. Anything that comes now is bonus.”
Kayla Blanton is a freelance writer-editor who covers health, nutrition, and lifestyle topics for various publications including Prevention, Everyday Health, SELF, People, and more. She’s always open to conversations about fueling up with flavorful dishes, busting beauty standards, and finding new, gentle ways to care for our bodies. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ohio University with specializations in women, gender, and sexuality studies and public health, and is a born-and-raised midwesterner living in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband and two spoiled kitties.
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