
Brad Pitt has more to say about Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy! Can I just say? I’m glad that Angelina Jolie announced her medical choice the way that she did, in a well-written, explanatory op-ed, and I like how she just left it out there for people to discuss at will. I watched All In With Chris Hayes last night, and his big story at the end of the show about Angelina and breast cancer and health care, and I think so many straight-news shows are covering it that way, as they should. That’s what Angelina wanted, I think. She announced it her way and she controlled how the information was released, but she doesn’t want to control the spin. Which is a great way to handle it.
Anyway, Brad issued a statement yesterday, hours after Angelina’s op-ed went online, and it seems that he also sat down with USA Today yesterday to discuss the situation. You can read the full USA Today piece here, and here are some highlights:
How Brad feels: “I’m quite emotional about it, of course. She could have stayed absolutely private about it and I don’t think anyone would have been none the wiser with such good results. But it was really important to her to share the story and that others would understand it doesn’t have to be a scary thing. In fact, it can be an empowering thing, and something that makes you stronger and us stronger.”
How Jolie kept her commitments: Pitt spoke with proud wonderment recounting how Jolie kept commitments in the past two months visiting the Congo, as well as London for the G-8 Foreign Ministers Conference and New York to honor Pakistani teen Malala Yousafzai. “This was during Stage 2 (when the double mastectomy was performed),” he said. “Literally it was just weeks after she’d had truly major surgery.”
Making recovery fun: “We set up our own little post-op recovery that became pretty fun. You make an adventure out of it.”
The experience was… “an emotional and beautifully inspiring few months. And I’ll tell you, it’s such a wonderful relief to come through this and not have a spectre hanging over our heads. To know that that’s not going to be something that’s going to affect us. My most proudest thing is our family. This isn’t going to get that.”
[From USA Today]
Yeah. Brad’s not the most eloquent person, but I believe he’s speaking from the heart, and more than that, I believe that, at this point, having gone through everything they’ve gone through, Brad knows that he and Angelina are in it for the long-haul. They always said that their children bound them together more than any piece of paper, but I think this experience has made them tighter than ever before.
I previewed People Magazine’s cover story in the earlier Jolie-Pitt post, but here’s the whole online article:
Angelina Jolie is one resilient mom.
The actress, 37, has experienced no complications since undergoing a double mastectomy in February and reconstructive surgery in April. “She is doing well,” a source tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story.
But her medical odyssey is not done. The mother of six is also planning to undergo surgery to remove her ovaries. Because of her “faulty” BRCA1 gene, she still faces a high risk of developing ovarian cancer, which her doctors estimate at 50 percent. Some doctors recommend patients undergo the surgery by age 40 or when a woman is done having children, though it may trigger early menopause.
For now, though, the actress and her fiancé, Brad Pitt, have been focused on maintaining a sense of routine for their kids – keeping up family traditions such as a Valentine’s Day gift exchange and an Easter egg hunt while Jolie was undergoing treatment.
In the weeks surrounding the surgeries, “life was normal” for the children, says a source, and they didn’t notice anything amiss.
Adds a family insider: “Her kids always come first to her.”
For much more on this story, including Jolie’s family’s life during her treatment, how Brad has supported Angelina and how her mom inspired her, pick up this week’s PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday
[From People]
Angelina’s mother Marcheline had ovarian cancer for years, and it’s interesting to me (medically) that Angelina’s doctors thought she had a higher risk for breast cancer as opposed to ovarian cancer. But it does sound like Angelina is going to be dealing with her ovarian cancer risk soon, probably this year. Be well, Angelina!


Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.