LONDON: Hollywood actor Angelina Jolie made her first public appearance since announcing her double mastectomy on Sunday, joining fiancé Brad Pitt on the red carpet in London, where she welcomed the debate on women’s health that the surgery has sparked.
The Oscar-winning actor has stayed out of the spotlight since announcing her operation in a New York Times column last month, saying the decision was made after finding she carried a gene that gave her an 87% chance of getting breast cancer.
The 37-year-old mother of six, praised for her courage in publicly announcing her surgery, is now reported to be planning another operation to remove her ovaries, as the BRCA1 gene also gives her a 50% chance of ovarian cancer.
On the red carpet for the world premiere of Pitt’s latest movie, zombie blockbuster World War Z, Jolie praised her partner as being “a wonderful man and a wonderful father.”
“I’m very, very grateful for all the support … and I have been very happy just to see the discussion of women’s health expanded and that means the world to me,” she told reporters.
“After losing my mom to these issues, I am very grateful for it,” added the American actor, who was wearing a long black, backless Yves Saint Laurent dress.
Jolie’s mother, actor Marcheline Bertrand, died from ovarian cancer in 2007 at the age of 56 and her aunt, 61-year-old Debbie Martin, died last week as a result of breast cancer. Jolie missed her aunt’s funeral to accompany Pitt to London for the premiere of World War Z, an adaptation of Max Brooks’ 2006 apocalyptic novel.
In World War Z, Pitt plays United Nations representative Gerry Lane who is enlisted to help stop a zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to destroy mankind. Pitt said he was proud of the film and also of Jolie for her decision to have a mastectomy for the sake of their family and to share that experience.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 4th, 2013.
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