NEWSLinda Perry's Secret Cancer Battle: Rocker Reveals She Had a Double Mastectomy in 2021
June 12 2024, Published 10:27 a.m. ET
Singer Linda Perry revealed she secretly battled b------ cancer in 2021. The 59-year-old was diagnosed with the disease and underwent a double mastectomy at the time, she revealed in a new interview with People.
“I feel so lucky because there’s so many women that don’t get that opportunity,” she said.
Linda Perry was married to Sara Gilbert.
Perry realized she had cancer when she was preparing for an elective b------ reduction surgery, she said in her new documentary Linda Perry: Let It Die Here, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on June 6. After going under the knife, doctors discovered she had triple negative cancer, which "tends to grow and spread faster," in her b------.
If she hadn't had the surgery, Perry was certain she might not be alive today.
The star's doctors discovered she had the disease after getting elective surgery.
“My doctor basically said the cancer that I had was the kind that she finds in people where they have six months to maybe two years to live,” she said. “And I would’ve never found it, and I would’ve never done anything about it when I started feeling off, because I would’ve thought it was because of my mom and the stressful situation I was under.”
The "Fill Me Up" songstress' doctors recommended she undergo radiation and get a double mastectomy, which she quickly agreed to.
The rocker was filming her documentary when she got the news.
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Perry, who shares son Rhodes, 9, with ex Sara Gilbert, was filming Let It Die Here when she got the shocking diagnosis. Though she could have kept quiet, she told director Don Hardy she wanted to share what she was going through with the world.
“The hammer was on me, and this happened in real time. I remember calling Don and going, ‘You’re not going to believe this,’” she recalled. “And he’s like, ‘Well, do you want to talk about it?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, we’re in it. Let’s just do it.’”
Linda Perry will also release a new album.
Now that Perry has a new lease on life, she's getting ready to release her documentary, in addition to a new album.
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“I am really finally enjoying this person I’m becoming,” she said. “I’ve always had this thing where I just want to be the best. So much f--------- pressure to be the best. But now I’m like, I just want to be the best at who I am. And that takes a lot of pressure off. I don’t want to be f-------- Superman. I don’t want to save the world. I just want to save the people I can, and I want to be the best person that I am.”
