Osbourne reveals she has same high cancer risk as Jolie
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, March 25, 2015, 3:51 PM
Stefanie Keenan/Taylor Hill/GettKelly Osbourne revealed Wednesday that she has the same cancer gene as Angelina Jolie and that she, too, plans to get her ovaries removed as a precaution in the future.
Kelly Osbourne says she plans to remove her ovaries like Angelina Jolie one day – and the two celebrities share more than just the gene mutation that put them at high risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
The Beverly Hills surgeon who performed Jolie’s preventative double mastectomy in 2013 and counseled the Oscar winner about the timing of her oophorectomy is Dr. Kristi Funk, the same surgeon who treated Osbourne’s mom Sharon Osbourne.
Dr. Funk of the Pink Lotus Breast Focal point is a vocal advocate for genetic testing in families where generation after generation of women have died from cancer.
The goal, she has said, is to identify women with the so-called BRCA gene mutation because it carries an estimated 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer.
“In anticipation of recently, no one really understood it,” she said on CNN after Jolie detailed her recent ovary removal in a Tuesday op-ed piece in the New York Times. “Now we get it. There’s a gene. It’s called BRCA. You can test for it pretty easily. And you can save your life.”
It was Tuesday that Kelly Osbourne, 30, revealed on the CBS morning chatfest “The Talk” that she plans to get her ovaries removed when the time is right.
“I really do have the cancer gene. My mom made all of us go and get tested after she found out that she had it and got her double mastectomy,” the former “Fashion Police” host said.
“I agree with this 100 percent,” she continued, referring to Jolie’s choice to have her ovaries and Fallopian tubes removed as a preventative measure. “I know that one day I will eventually have to do it too because if I have children, I want to be there to bring them up. I want to be there to support them in every way I can.”
She said that as the child of a cancer survivor, she knows the stakes.
MICHAEL NELSON/EPA“Being on that end of it as well, it is really, really, really hard to deal with, and I’m so I’m so lucky to have the mother I have, the courageous mother I have that has taught me so much,” she said. “It’s something I applaud Angelina for because she’s bringing attention to this, and people are now gonna go out and get tested for it.”
Sharon Osbourne, 62, beat colon cancer in 2002 and later had her double mastectomy after learning she had the BRCA gene mutation.
“As soon as I found out I had the breast cancer gene, I plotting: ‘The odds are not in my act of kindness,’ ” she previously told Hello! Magazine. “I decided to just take everything off.”
Since Jolie published her intimate portrait of her experience in her Tuesday op-ed, cancer experts have lauded the actress, director and mother of six for raising awareness.
View Gallery The reinvention of Angelina Jolie“We continue to applaud Angelina Jolie Pitt’s willingness to share her journey with the world and to produce awareness of the BRCA gene mutation,” Pink Lotus said in a statement.
“Every woman’s circumstances are unique and her treatment plot should be developed to reflect an individualized approach,” it said.
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ndillon@nydailynews.com
