(Reuters) – British celebrity Sharon Osbourne has had a double mastectomy after discovering she was carrying a gene that increased the risk of her developing breast cancer, she told Hello! magazine in an interview published on Monday.
Osbourne, 60, told the publication that the decision was a “no-brainer” in the end.
“As soon as I found out I had the breast cancer gene, I thought: ‘The odds are not in my favor’,” she said in remarks that also ran in the Daily Mirror tabloid.
“I’ve had cancer before and I didn’t want to live under that cloud: I decided to just take everything off, and had a double mastectomy.”
Osbourne, who put the eccentric life of her family on view in the reality TV series “The Osbournes”, said she did not want to spend the rest of her life with “that shadow hanging over me.
“I want to be around for a long time and be a grandmother to Pearl,” she added, referring to her son Jack’s first child.
“I didn’t even think of my breasts in a nostalgic way, I just wanted to be able to live my life without that fear all the time. It’s not ‘pity me’, it’s a decision I made that’s got rid of this weight that I was carrying around.”
Osbourne raised her profile by appearing as a judge on successful talent shows “The X Factor” and “America’s Got Talent”. She is married to heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne.
Her London publicist referred Reuters to the interview which ran in Hello! and the Daily Mirror when asked to confirm the news.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)