In a new interview, breast cancer survivor Melissa Etheridge states that Angelina Jolie’s decision to undergo a double mastectomy was not the “brave choice” but rather a “fearful choice.”
Jolie revealed her decision to undergo a double mastectomy as a preventative measure after she found out she had the “faulty gene” BRCA1, a gene proven to increase the odds of developing breast and ovarian cancer.
Etheridge, 52, discussed Jolie’s decision during an interview with Washington Blade, saying, “I wouldn’t call it the brave choice… I actually think it's the most fearful choice you can make when confronting anything with cancer. My belief is that cancer comes from inside you and so much of it has to do with the environment of your body. It's the stress that will turn that gene on or not."
“Plenty of people have the gene mutation and everything but it never comes to cancer," she continues. "I would say to anybody faced with that, that choice is way down the line on the spectrum of what you can do and to really consider the advancements we've made in things like nutrition and stress levels."
Etheridge famously battled breast cancer in 2004, showing up to the Grammy Awards with a bald head. Jolie lost her mother Marcheline to cancer at the age of 56, and, most recently, her aunt Debbie.
Image: CBS