'I'm not dying from this': Supermodel Linda Evangelista reveals secret double cancer diagnosis

Legendary supermodel Linda Evangelista has revealed she has been diagnosed with cancer twice in five years.

In an interview with WSJ Magazine, the 58-year-old admitted she chose to "keep it quiet" and "only a handful of people knew".

She said the first diagnosis came after a mammogram in 2018 and decided to undergo a bilateral mastectomy – a treatment which involves surgery to remove both breasts.

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"The margins were not good. [I chose this treatment] due to other health factors, without hesitation, because I wanted to put everything behind me and not to have to deal with this.

"Thinking I was good and set for life. Breast cancer was not going to kill me."

Four years later, the fashion icon felt a lump on her chest in July 2022 and an MRI revealed cancer was present in her pectoral muscle.

"I just went into this mode that I know how to do – just do what you've got to do and get through it," she said. "And that's what I did."

"Dig a hole in my chest," she recalled telling her doctors.

"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."

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Evangelista was told after surgery that although her prognosis was good, there was a chance the cancer could return.

"Well, once it's come back, there's a chance," she recalled the oncologist's words.

"I know I have one foot in the grave, but I'm totally in celebration mode."

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