Add Brooke Burke-Charvet to the list of Angelina Jolie supporters.
The Dancing with the Stars host criticized singer Melissa Etheridge, who disagreed that Jolie had made a “brave choice” to have the surgery after learning that she carried a gene that increased her risk of developing breast cancer.
“I have that gene mutation too, and it’s not something I would believe in for myself. I wouldn’t call it the brave choice,” Etheridge said. “I actually think it’s the most fearful choice you can make when confronting anything with cancer.”
Etheridge went on to say that the gene mutation does not always lead to cancer.
“Plenty of people have the gene mutation and everything but it never comes to cancer so 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,” she said.
However, Burke-Charvet disagreed with Etheridge’s comments .
“I feel like to comment on somebody else’s decision and their motivation and to criticize it in any way feels really inappropriate for me,” Burke-Charvet said.
“And I bite my tongue because Angelina is not a personal friend and I can’t speak about her experience, but doing something electively to avoid greats odds that you can have a fatal disease, not only is it brave, but I think it’s pretty intelligent.”
Burke-Charvet had her own cancer scare last year, and underwent a thyroidectomy to remove a benign tumor in her throat . In December, the former swimsuit model happily posted the news that she was cancer-free on her ModernMom blog.
“I just got the results back from all of my tests and great news – the thyroid cancer has been removed from my body and all my lymph nodes are clear,” she wrote. “So I’m hoping that this is the end of the story. ”
She also said that the experience brought her and her family closer together, and that it has given her a “newfound respect for life.”
Do you agree with Brooke Burke-Charvet or Melissa Etheridge?
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