Michelle Heaton opens up about her struggle after double mastectomy

Former Liberty X singer Michelle Heaton has spoken about having a double mastectomy.

The star, 38, says the whole ordeal was ‘so hard’ and that it was a particularly big decision to have the surgery, after the singer was diagnosed with a mutated BRCA2 gene, which meant she had an 85% chance of getting breast cancer.

Read more: The breast cancer checks women (and men!) should be doing

Speaking to OK! Magazine, she said: ‘I feel like I’ve lost me. I feel like that person died and I’m mourning her.’

‘But I haven’t had a chance to do that properly,’ she said after having also had a full hysterectomy. ‘After the operation I looked into the mirror and it looked like I’d just had a baby.

Read more: Men get breast cancer too

‘But I didn’t have a child and I couldn’t ever have another child. It was so hard,’ she said.

Having appeared in the recent The Real Full Monty: Ladies Night for cancer awareness, Michelle said the experience was ‘humbling’, while increasing her self-confidence.

Read more: Women bare their mastectomy scars for cancer awareness

Also speaking to OK! about the process, she said: ‘It was really humbling and it made me feel really positive about the future,” and that it was actually her husband that encouraged her to sign up to the televised event.

Michelle originally said no to the prospect of appearing on The Real Full Monty, but was, as she revealed, talked into it. The show itself followed the all-male night the day before, which raised awareness for cancer and got people talking more openly about it.

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