Elle Macpherson Reveals She Was Diagnosed with Breast Cancer 7 Years Ago, Refused Chemotherapy

Elle Macpherson is opening up about a secret health battle.

In a new interview with Australia’s Women’s Weekly magazine published on Monday (September 2), the 60-year-old Australian supermodel revealed that she was diagnosed with breast cancer after undergoing a lumpectomy seven years ago.

Keep reading to find out more…Elle said that at the time, she was advised to undergo a mastectomy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and breast reconstruction surgery, but instead decided to treat her cancer without traditional message.

Instead, Elle decided on an “an intuitive, heart-led, holistic approach” to treatment after praying and meditating on a beach in Miami.

“It was a shock, it was unexpected, it was confusing, it was daunting in
 so many ways.And it really gave me an opportunity to dig deep in my inner sense to find a solution that worked for me,” Elle explained. “I realized I was going to need my own truth, my belief system to support me through it. And that’s what I did. So, it was a wonderful exercise in being true to myself, trusting myself and trusting the nature of my body and the course of action that I had chosen.”

Then in her upcoming memoir Elle, the model went into further detail about her decision to treat her cancer with a holistic approach.

“Saying no to standard medical solutions was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But saying no to my own inner sense would have been even harder,” Elle wrote, according to an excerpt published by Women’s Weekly.

“Sometimes an authentic choice from the heart makes no sense to others … but it doesn’t have to,” she added. “People thought
I was crazy but I knew I had to make
a choice that truly resonated with
me. To me, that meant addressing emotional as well as physical factors associated with breast cancer. It was time for deep, inner reflection. And that took courage.”

Elle went on to say that her two sons, Flynn, 26, and Cy, 21, along with their father, her ex partner Arpad Busson all had mixed reactions to her using a holistic approach to treat her cancer.

“Cy simply thought that chemo kills you. And so he never wanted me to do it because he thought that was a kiss of death,” Elle wrote. “Flynn, being more conventional, wasn’t comfortable with my choice at all.”

While Arpad “didn’t agree with what I was doing,” he supported her decision. “He wrote to me to tell me how proud he was of the courage I was showing,” Elle wrote.

Now seven years later after her initial diagnosis, Elle said that she is cancer-free.

“In traditional terms, they’d say I’m in clinical remission, but I would say I’m in utter wellness,” Elle said. “And I am.”

In an interview from last year, Elle shared her true feelings about modeling.

Elle will be releasing Elle: Life, Lessons, and Learning to Trust Yourself on Nov. 19. You can pre-order the memoir at PenguinRandomHouse.com.