Linda Evangelista says breast cancer scars are ‘trophies’ after revealing secret battle

Linda Evangelista has given new details on her battle with breast cancer, days after she revealed she’d undergone a double mastectomy.

Linda Evangelista has given new details on her battle with breast cancer, days after she revealed she’d undergone a double mastectomy and chemotherapy in a bid to beat the disease.

The supermodel first disclosed her harrowing health ordeal in an interview with WSJ Magazine last week, saying she was first diagnosed with the illness in 2018 during an annual mammogram, and then cancer of the pectoral muscle last year.

“The margins were not good, and due to other health factors, without hesitation, because I wanted to put everything behind me and not have to deal with this, I opted for a bilateral mastectomy,” the 58-year-old said.

Evangelista, who is now in remission, told Vanity Fair she views her scars from the procedure as “trophies”, adding that she is “so happy to be alive”.

“I never felt like my breasts defined me as a woman,” the Canadian-born model said.

Linda Evangelista has given new details on her battle with breast cancer. Picture: Evan Agostini/Getty Images

‘I have always viewed scars on the body from surgeries, from disease, as trophies.’ Picture: Taylor Hill/Getty Images

“I have always viewed scars on the body from surgeries, from disease, as trophies. They are like gold and shiny and should be on a mantle. It shows you won.

“I think scars are to be celebrated and not to be looked at as bad and ugly. It makes you stronger.”

Evangelista went on to tell the publication she’s in “full celebration mode right now”.

“I’ve had some health struggles and everything now is just a celebration,” she added.

Evangelista with Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington. Picture: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

“I am very positive. It’s the new me. I think going through hardships and coming through the other end has made me focus only on the good things. I’m so happy to be alive. I know I’m very fortunate.”

In her interview with WSJ Magazine, Evangelista said she told doctors to “dig a hole in my chest” after learning her cancer had returned.

“I don’t want it to look pretty. I want you to excavate. I want to see a hole in my chest when you’re done. Do you understand me? I’m not dying from this,” she recalled telling her surgeon.

The supermodel disappeared from the limelight several years ago. Picture: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

A fat-freezing procedure left Evangelista ‘permanently deformed’. Picture: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Fragrance Foundation

Several years ago, the mother-of-one retreated from the limelight after claiming a cosmetic “fat-freezing” procedure by CoolSculpting left her “permanently deformed” and “brutally disfigured”.

Sharing the “reason” she had “not been working while my peers’ careers have been thriving” in September 2021, Evangelista said the risk of Paradoxical Adipose Hyperplasia (PAH) – a hardening of localised fat – was not something she was made aware of before she had the surgery.

It prompted her to file a since-settled lawsuit against CoolSculpting’s parent company, Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc, for $US50 million ($68 million in damages).

“Am I cured mentally? Absolutely not. But I’m so grateful for the support I got from my friends and from my industry,” Evangelista told British Vogue last year.

“You’re not going to see me in a swimsuit, that’s for sure. It's going to be difficult to find jobs with things protruding from me; without retouching, or squeezing into things, or taping things or compressing or tricking.”