Roxy Jacenko ignored advice to get mastectomy to keep her surgically enhanced breasts

PR queen Roxy Jacenko has revealed she hasn’t told her children Pixie and Hunter their father is in jail, instead saying he is in China and will be back by Christmas.

PR queen Roxy Jacenko has admitted she hasn’t told children Pixie and Hunter their father is in jail, instead saying he is in China and will be back by Christmas.

In a revealing interview on 60 Minutes last night, the Sweaty Betty founder said she didn’t want her children to think their dad, Oliver Curtis, was a “baddie”.

60 Minutes reporter Allison Langdon with Roxy Jacenko and her children Hunter and Pixie.

Jacenko talks to 60 minutes's Alison Langdon about her battle with cancer and her husband Oliver Curtis going to jail for insider trading. Picture: 60 Minutes

Curtis was jailed for a minimum of one year after being found guilty of a $1.4 million insider trading conspiracy with his former best friend in 2007-2008.

“If you watch a cartoon these days, the baddie always goes to jail and I don’t want them to think that of their father,” Jacenko told 60 Minutes last night.

“I don’t want that to be instilled in their mind.”

Jacenko got some take away coffee and food in Bondi today before the 60 Minutes episode went to air. Picture: Cameron Richardson.

Jacenko said that she and Curtis also don’t discuss the circumstances of his crime, which happened long before the pair met.

“We don’t discuss it. At all ... A lot of people find it strange that I haven’t asked all of the questions,” she said, adding she had been soul-searching about how the events of the past year have transpired,” she said.

“You know, maybe if he hadn’t married me, it would’ve probably not been something that had become such big news ... and I hope that I didn’t contribute to it.”

Oliver Curtis was jailed for insider trading earlier this year. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

The 36-year-old also discussed her breast cancer diagnosis and revealed how she disregarded surgeons’ advice for a mastectomy and opted instead to remove only a cancerous lump so she could keep her surgically enhanced breasts.

Her diagnosis came in July — just three weeks after her husband was jailed.

“I think we also have to look at what has transpired in the last sort of six weeks of my life and making such rash and big decisions right now,” Jacenko told reporter Allison Langdon of her decision to opt for the less invasive surgery.

“I don’t think I’m in the headspace to do it.”

Roxy Jacenko opens up about her cancer battle and how she is dealing with her husband being jailed. Picture: 60 Minutes

Doctors at Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital recommended a full mastectomy.

However, Jacenko this month travelled to Melbourne’s Epworth Freemasons Hospital to be operated on by Professor Bruce Mann, who maintained that removing just the lump was a viable option.

“I suppose, unlike everything else in my life where I’ll go full pelt, it was, like, this one thing I wanted to do in, I suppose you could say, a phased approach rather than going, ‘OK, well, chop off my boobs’,” Jacenko said.

Jacenko last night explained her decision to do the interview with 60 Minutes, and another appearing in today’s Woman’s Day, saying it was “extremely challenging as ultimately I put myself out there for everyone to attack”.

“On the flip side, among hundreds of nasty and threatening comments, it’s so incredible to have so many kind, caring and thoughtful messages of support on so many different levels from people I have never even met,” she said.

“The reality is, after so much speculation I felt it was time to respond, and in doing so, as confronting as it was, knowing that I have helped three charities and a hospital with the full proceeds of the interviews I can go to bed tonight knowing I have done something that will help others and hopefully bring cures to a health issue (cancer) that touches so many and has seen so many wonderful people lost.”

Roxy Jacenko has revealed to 60 minutes' Alison Langdon that she has not told her children Pixie and Hunter (pictured) their father is in jail. Source: 60 Minutes

Jacenko said the money she would have been paid for the interviews went to charities including Breast Cancer Network Australia, from which she received “so much advice and assistance”.

“Without funding these nurses would not be so readily available, she removed any of the unknowns for me on diagnosis so it was important to give back,” she said.

Money also went to Ovarian Cancer Australia, after a close friend lost her mother to the disease, and The Australian Gastro-Intestinal Cancer Trials Group after her oncologist Professor Eva Segalov “made me aware of the lack of funding that goes toward rare cancers, so putting money toward the research and clinical trials was something that I wanted to support — you don’t ever hear much about cancer of the oesophagus, stomach, liver, pancreas, gallbladder”.

“Money also went to Freemasons Epworth Hospital, Melbourne where I was operated on by Professor Bruce Mann.”