Inspirational Celebrities Who Won Battles Against Breast Cancer

The much respected, much-loved Harry Potter actress Dame Maggie Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008. But she was determined to still appear as Professor McGonagall in the franchise’s next installment. “I was hairless. I had no problem getting the wig on,” she told The Telegraph in 2009. Nevertheless, by 2010 she’d received the all-clear.

Singer Sheryl Crow has been both very unlucky and very unlucky when it comes to her health. In 2006 she was diagnosed with a pre-cancerous breast lesion and had to undergo both a lumpectomy and radiotherapy. She recovered, but then in 2011 discovered she had a brain tumor... which fortunately turned out to be benign.

The Sopranos actress Edie Falco kept her 2003 breast cancer diagnosis a secret from most. In fact, producer Ilene Landress, a close friend of Falco, organized The Sopranos shoots around her chemo treatment. But by the next year she was in remission, and only then did she decide to go public with her struggle.

Actress Rita Wilson broke the news of her breast cancer in 2015. She revealed that she’d recently had a bilateral mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. “I am recovering and most importantly, expected to make a full recovery. Why? Because I caught this early, have excellent doctors, and because I got a second opinion,” she said in a statement to People. Wilson also thanked her husband, Tom Hanks.

Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon always suspected she would get breast cancer because her mother had had the disease. And while she ended up being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, following radiotherapy and an operation she won her battle against it. She has since campaigned energetically to raise public awareness of the condition.

Singer Anastacia has had to deal with multiple health problems throughout her life. In addition to Crohn’s disease and a heart condition, she battled breast cancer in both 2003 and 2013. She ended up getting a double mastectomy, and subsequently, she showed the world her scars by posing naked for FAULT magazine.

In 2008 a representative for actress Christina Applegate released a statement that read, “Christina Applegate was diagnosed with an early stage of breast cancer. Benefiting from early detection through a doctor-ordered MRI, the cancer is not life-threatening.” Applegate, who recovered that same year, consequently set up a charity focusing on cancer prevention via MRI scans.

In July 2010 British actress Jennifer Saunders revealed that she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer eight months earlier. Thankfully, she eventually went into remission after a lumpectomy, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Saunders later told The Sunday Times that the worst part had been the medication giving her facial rashes.

Writer and actress Marsha Hunt was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, but she faced it with humor. When she had a mastectomy she wrote a note on her breast for the doctors, and when she had chemotherapy she invited her friends to chop her hair off. Indeed, her attitude may have served her well, as she was clear of the disease by 2008.

After her 2007 breast cancer diagnosis, news anchor Hoda Kotb allowed cameras to follow her throughout her mastectomy and reconstructive surgery in order to raise public awareness. Sadly the treatments have left her unable to have children, but she remains cancer-free.

Actress Kathy Bates has survived both ovarian cancer and breast cancer. She eventually had a double mastectomy in 2012 to rid her of the latter. “Luckily, I don’t have to undergo radiation or chemo,” she told People that year. “My family call me Kat because I always land on my feet, and thankfully this is no exception.”

Singer Melissa Etheridge began her battle with breast cancer in 2004. She subsequently underwent a lumpectomy, radiation treatment, and chemotherapy. And when the chemo made her hair fall out she simply performed at the 2005 Grammys without it. She eventually recovered and credits medical marijuana as being a big help to her.

In 2017, the Seinfeld and Veep star announced on Twitter that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. To make matters even more stressful, Louis-Dreyfus revealed that she was diagnosed just one day after winning an Emmy Award. Still, she went into the difficult recovery process with hope: "I have the most glorious group of supportive and caring family and friends." A year later, she happily announced that she was cancer-free.

Shortly after being cast in Parenthood in 2009, Maura Tierney had to undergo surgery to remove a tumor in her breast. “My doctors have all assured me this is a very treatable condition,” she later revealed in a statement. It was, and though she had to give up work on Parenthood to recover, she was back to acting by 2010.

In October 2011 E! News host Giuliana Rancic revealed that she would be having a lumpectomy and radiation therapy later in the month to combat breast cancer. She underwent the treatment and returned to work just a few days later. In December of that year, she also had a double mastectomy. Thankfully, the operation was a success.

Charlie’s Angels actress Jaclyn Smith went in for a mammogram in 2003 and was told by doctors that she had breast cancer. As a result, she had a lumpectomy and radiation therapy, and in 2008 she would become part of the breast cancer awareness campaign Strength in Knowing.

Legendary actress Diahann Carroll was diagnosed with breast cancer following a mammogram in 1997, at the age of 63. After going into remission, however, she began to campaign for breast cancer awareness. She also said that the disease had brought her and her daughter closer together.

Actress Suzanne Somers was diagnosed with cancer in 2001, but her treatments proved controversial. Indeed, although she underwent a lumpectomy and radiation therapy, she refused chemotherapy. Once she’d recovered, moreover, she published a book about alternative cancer treatments that drew criticism from the American Cancer Society.

Australian singer Kylie Minogue put on a brave face throughout her 2005 cancer battle, publicly discussing it even as she underwent surgery and chemo. As a result, Australian doctors noticed a sudden rush of young women getting themselves checked out for cancer after heeding Minogue’s advice.

Shannen Doherty has been battling breast cancer since 2015, but it's not her only health issue. “There’s nothing sexy about women saying, ‘I’ve got to go to the bathroom right now,’” Shannen Doherty said of her Crohn’s disease diagnosis to Star magazine in 1999. Since then, the Beverly Hills, 90210 star has remained relatively tight-lipped about her battle with the inflammatory bowel disease, which can manifest itself through recurring diarrhea, abdominal pain, and weight loss.

Malcolm in the Middle star Frankie Muniz had two transient ischemic attacks – or “mini strokes” – within a year of each other, in 2012 and 2013. As the name suggests, their symptoms are temporary but can still be debilitating, leading to problems with speech and seeing and prompted by a short-lived disturbance in blood flow to the brain. After the second attack, the actor and musician took to Twitter to assert his understandable hope that it would be his last and that the whole experience was “miserable.”

Former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson revealed her hepatitis C diagnosis in 2002, claiming that she contracted the sometimes liver-scarring disease after sharing a tattoo needle with ex-husband Tommy Lee. Come November 2015, though, and Anderson had some happy news, as the actress told the world via Instagram that treatment had cured her of the condition.

In 1989 Halle Berry collapsed during the filming of the sitcom Living Dolls and fell into a week-long coma. “[Doctors] told me I might lose my eyesight, or I could lose my legs,” the Daily Mail reported her as saying in 2005. “I was scared to death, I thought I was going to die.” The actress was subsequently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes – a condition that she has since managed through monitoring of her diet, exercise, and regular insulin injections.

Charlie Sheen shocked the world in November 2015 when he confirmed that he had been diagnosed as HIV positive four years prior. “It started with a series of cluster headaches and sweating – I was hospitalized. I thought I had a brain tumor,” the erstwhile Two and a Half Men star said in his Today interview held to clear up the rumors surrounding his health.

Avril Lavigne has admitted to thinking that she thought that she was “dying” before her diagnosis of Lyme disease in late 2014. Before the revelation of her condition, the pop star had suffered months of sluggishness – and that wasn’t even the worst of it. “I felt like I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t talk and I couldn’t move,” Lavigne told People in 2015 of her battle with the bacterial infection, which is spread by ticks.

Toni Braxton confirmed her diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in 2010 and has since been admirably frank in interviews about her experiences with the autoimmune disease. “Pretty much when you have lupus you feel like you have the flu every day,” the “Un-Break My Heart” singer told The Huffington Post in 2015, adding that it can be hard to perform on a bad day.

Concern ran high for Lil Wayne in 2013 when he was rushed to hospital after experiencing seizures while recording a music video. However, the rapper would later confirm that he has epilepsy and that he had suffered from seizures before – not that he remembers much when they do strike. “I go to sleep and wake up in the hospital. I don’t feel anything. I just hope it stops happening,” he explained in a 2013 appearance on the MTV show RapFix Live.

Cher’s glittering career was blighted by illness in the early ’90s, leaving the legendary singer with no choice but to take a break for close to three years. She later revealed that she had been diagnosed as having been infected with the Epstein-Barr virus, which itself was thought to have led to a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome. “My experience was, it was really a physical illness but it does make you depressed as well,” the star would tell the BBC about her battle with the condition.

Tom Hanks made quite the revelation when he appeared on Late Show with David Letterman – that is, that he had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. And the Oscar-winning actor may actually have been exhibiting one of the disease’s tell-tale signs for nigh on two decades. As Hanks explained to Letterman on the show: “[My doctor] said, ‘You know those high blood sugar numbers you’ve been dealing with since you were 36? Well, you’ve graduated.’” Since then, he has cut back on the sugar in his diet and prioritized exercise.

Hip-hop queen Missy Elliott decided to deal with her Graves’ disease in private after being diagnosed in 2008. And it was an experience that left the star so ravaged with the autoimmune disorder that she couldn’t even hold a pen. “My nervous system shut down,” Elliott said in her 2011 episode of the VH1 show Behind the Music. “Your skin is dry, your hair falls out, you wake up, your eyes feel like they’ve got rocks in them.” It’s a condition that she’s since admitted to having controlled through her diet and with exercise.

In 2011 Catherine Zeta-Jones surprised celebrity watchers when it was revealed that she had admitted herself into a Connecticut psychiatric hospital. The Oscar-winning actress made the move to receive treatment for bipolar II disorder, which is characterized by spells of both hypomania and acute depression, and spent time in a facility in 2013 to deal with the condition as well. “[Bipolar II] is something I have been dealing with for a long time,” she told The Telegraph in 2013. “Not sleeping, worry, stress. It’s a classic trigger.”

In 2012 Jack Osbourne was still getting to grips with life as a new dad when he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The reality TV star would go on to describe the time that he heard that he had the neurological condition as “the scariest moment [of his] life.” “I never know how or when it’s going to affect me,” he related in a TV broadcast for the British charity Multiple Sclerosis Society. “[I could have] problems with my vision… numbness [or] fatigue.”

Nick Cannon was hospitalized in 2012 with kidney failure, after which it was revealed that the America’s Got Talent host had been diagnosed with lupus nephritis. That’s a condition that inflames the kidneys and is prompted by the disease systemic lupus erythematosus. As a result, Cannon has had to make a few lifestyle adjustments – as he told The Huffington Post in 2012, “I have to get a lot more sleep; that was maybe one of the stems of what started all of this.”

At just 13 years of age, Nick Jonas discovered that he had type 1 diabetes – with one of the tip-offs being a dramatic 15-pound weight loss within only a matter of weeks. Upon his diagnosis, the Jonas Brothers star wondered if he would be able to continue with a career in music; thankfully, though, he has since learned to manage the condition and now has a successful solo recording career.

Modern Family star Sarah Hyland has battled with the condition kidney dysplasia, in which one or both of the kidneys are malformed, since before adolescence. Fortunately, though, her quality of life improved immeasurably in 2012 thanks to a transplant, with a kidney donated by her dad. “I would be in a lot of pain a lot of the time,” the young star told Good Morning America of her experiences before the surgery. “If I didn’t get, like, 12 hours of sleep, it felt like none at all.”

Hugh Jackman initially found out that he had the skin cancer basal cell carcinoma in 2013 – and, since then, the disease has returned multiple times. “I’m realistic about the future and it’s more than likely that I’ll have at least one more but probably many more,” the Wolverine actor revealed in a 2015 interview with Australian magazine Who. It’s now recommended that he has a check-up four times a year, just in case the cancer comes back.

Sofia Vergara was only 28 when she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer – a revelation that she naturally found “very traumatic.” The Modern Family actress subsequently had surgery to remove her thyroid and takes a daily pill to replace its functions. However, even though she has remained cancer-free since, she has admitted that even a cough can make her “a little paranoid” that the disease has returned.

Selena Gomez was diagnosed with lupus in 2013 but didn’t make the news public until October 2015. At the time, the media falsely reported that she was in rehab for substance abuse; in reality, though, as the singer revealed to Billboard magazine, she was receiving chemotherapy. “I could have had a stroke,” she added of the seriousness of her condition. She ended up getting a kidney transplant and proudly displays her scar on Instagram.

In 2011 tennis ace Venus Williams was diagnosed with Sjögren’s syndrome, a condition in which the sufferer’s immune system attacks the body’s fluid-producing glands. “There were days at the beginning where I did feel like I wanted to stay in bed,” she told CNN tennis show Open Court in 2014. Ever the champ, though, she’s since come back fighting and has adopted a vegan diet to help keep her healthy.