Brad pitt and angelina jolie, Brad Pitt praised Angelina Jolie for her “heroic” decision to undergo a life-saving double mastectomy, fueling speculation that the crisis will finally catapult them to the altar.
The Hollywood heavyweight broke his silence Tuesday after his longtime lover publicly revealed she went under the knife to dramatically cut her risk of dying from breast cancer.
“Having witnessed this decision firsthand, I find Angie’s choice, as well as many others like her, absolutely heroic,” Pitt said in a statement. “I thank our medical team for their care and focus.”
Jolie said that undergoing the radical procedure has made the bond between her and Pitt even tighter and sources claim it has accelerated her plans to wed.
“Angie is keen on a wedding and the kids are clamoring for a marriage and keep asking Brad and Angie when it’s happening,” a source told the Daily Mail Online.
Jolie said Pitt has been her rock, staying at her side through countless medical procedures she has confronted since the surgery in February.
“I am fortunate to have a partner, Brad Pitt, who is so loving and supportive,” Jolie, 37, wrote in a moving op-ed she published in Tuesday’s New York Times.
“We managed to find moments to laugh together. We knew this was the right thing to do for our family and that it would bring us closer. And it has.”
The two film superstars, who announced their engagement in April 2012, have been lovers since 2005 and have six children — ages 2 to 9 — together.
All I want is for her to have a long and healthy life, with myself and our children,” the 49-year-old Pitt said Tuesday. “This is a happy day for our family.”
Jolie’s immediate family let her know she has their undying support. We’re so very proud of Angie, this means so much to our family especially our grandchildren. We love her dearly,” Pitt’s mother, Jane Pitt, said in a statement.
Jolie’s father, actor Jon Voight — who has often been estranged from his daughter over the years — said he only learned of her ordeal on Tuesday.
“I was as surprised as anyone and deeply moved by the way she’s handled this,” Voight, 74, told the Daily News. “She’s a very extraordinary person. The way she examined it and what she shared.”
Jolie’s brother, James Haven, applauded his sister’s decision.“My sister, like our mother, always put her children first,” said Haven, 40. “I am so grateful to be her brother.”
Jolie’s stunning disclosure of her medical crisis sparked admiration from women around the globe facing similar life-altering dilemmas. She said she chose to tell her story because there are “many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer.”
Breast cancer kills about 450,000 worldwide each year, according to the World Health Organization.“I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy,” she wrote. “But it is one I am very happy that I made.
I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.”
She was forced to weigh her odds earlier this year when a $3,000 genetic test determined she carried a “faulty” BRCA1 gene — putting her in danger of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
The “Tomb Raider” star’s mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, died in 2007 at age 56 after a decade-long battle with ovarian cancer.
Faced with an 87% chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer and a 50% risk of ovarian cancer, Jolie said she was determined not to end up like her mother.
“She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms,” Jolie said of her mom. “But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.
“We often speak of ‘Mommy’s mommy,’ and I find myself trying to explain the illness that took her away from us,” Jolie wrote. “They have asked if the same could happen to me.”
On Feb. 2, she underwent her first surgery at the Pink Lotus Breast Center in Beverly Hills for a biopsy of tissue behind both nipples that left her bruised. Two weeks later, she underwent eight hours of surgery to remove her breasts. “You wake up with drain tubes and expanders in your breasts,” Jolie wrote. “It does feel like a scene out of a science-fiction film. But days after surgery you can be back to a normal life.”
She went back into the hospital April 27, to complete the reconstruction of her breasts with implants. “There have been many advances in this procedure in the last few years, and the results can be beautiful,” Jolie said.
Dr. Kristi Funk, who performed the surgery on Jolie, said pathology tests of Jolie’s removed breast tissue only came back Monday. “I called Angelina to confirm our biggest hope: all the breast tissue was benign,” Funk disclosed Tuesday on Pink Lotus Breast Center’s website.
“On day four after her mastectomies, I was pleased to find her not only in good spirits with bountiful energy, but with two walls in her house covered with freshly assembled storyboards for the next project she is directing,” Funk said. “All the while she spoke, six drains dangled from her chest, three on each side, fastened to an elastic belt around her waist.”
While Jolie — a 1999 Academy Award winner for “Girl, Interrupted” — is not the first celebrity to undergo the preventive procedure, she is the most well known. Actress Christina Applegate, reality star Sharon Osbourne and singer Sheryl Crow have undergone successful preventative double mastectomies.
“She will have empowered millions of women all over the world,” Osbourne, 60, the wife of rocker Ozzy Osbourne, said.
E! News co-host Giuliana Rancic, 38, who underwent a double mastectomy in 2011 after being diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, predicted Jolie’s openness about her plight will empower other women to save their own lives. “She is an international superstar and her reach is endless,” said Rancic, who was also operated on by Funk at the Pink Lotus Center.
Jolie, who was appointed in 2012 as special envoy to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said she hopes the cost of the genetic testing she underwent will eventually come down so that women without insurance can benefit. The Obama administration’s 2010 health care act requires insurance companies to cover the testing.
“It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options,” Jolie wrote. “Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.”
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Brad pitt and angelina jolie
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