Celebrities Reveal the Keys That Got Them Through Their Breast Cancer Battles

These beloved celebrities are breast cancer survivors who have inspired other women in the battle to end the disease

Breast cancer doesn’t discriminate. People from all walks of life battle with the disease, including celebrities. Many have spoken out about their own battles.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus went public with her breast cancer diagnosis in September 2017 via Instagram. Nearly one year later, she had successfully beaten the illness and returned to work on her acclaimed HBO series, Veep.

On Good Morning America in 2019, Louis-Dreyfus said that she wants to help other women going through the same health battle. “It sounds kind of corny, but there’s something about after you’ve walked through something like this, which is such a crisis, to be able to help someone who’s then going through,” the Seinfeld alum said. “It’s very, sort of, comforting to yourself in a weird way. It really is something that I’m happy to do. It gives me a lot of energy and a good feeling, for sure.”

Cynthia Nixon was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006. When she was a child, the Sex and the City alum’s mother, Ann, successfully battled this disease as well.

Two years after her diagnosis, Nixon revealed that she was cancer-free. The former New York gubernatorial candidate later became an advocate for breast cancer awareness by becoming an ambassador for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

“I want them most to hear me saying that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” she said on Nightline in 2008. “So, the only thing to really be afraid of is if you don’t go get your mammograms, because there’s some part of you that doesn’t want to know, and that’s the thing that’s going to trip you up. That’s the thing that could have a really bad endgame.”

Meanwhile, Wanda Sykes revealed in 2011 that her breast cancer was caught in the early stages. She underwent a double mastectomy to eliminate her risk.

“I had real big boobs, and I just got tired of knocking over stuff,” the comedian said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show at the time. “Every time I eat … Oh, lord. I’d carry a Tide stick everywhere I go. My back was sore, so it was time to have a reduction. It wasn’t until after the reduction that, in the lab work, the pathology, that they found that I had DCIS [ductal carcinoma in situ] in my left breast. I was very, very lucky because DCIS is basically stage-zero cancer.”

The New Adventures of Old Christine alum continued, “I have a lot of breast cancer history on my mother’s side of the family. I had both breasts removed … Now I have zero chance of having breast cancer.”

Scroll down to learn about other famous breast cancer survivors.