Stars Who've Faced Breast Cancer

From Angelina Jolie going public about her double mastectomy to Melissa Etheridge's memorable return to the stage, see the women who've shared their survivor stories

                                      ANGELINA JOLIE
Age at diagnosis: 37
After tests revealed she had a high risk of developing breast cancer,Jolie quietly underwent a double mastectomy in February, she told the New York Times in a May 14 op-ed article. "I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made," writes the mother of six "I can tell my children that they don't need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer."

                                  MELISSA ETHERIDGE
Age at diagnosis: 43
When the singer took the stage at the 2005 Grammy Awards with a show-stopping rendition of Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart," she famously performed bald – a reminder of her October 2004 breast cancer diagnosis. "I'm feeling great," she proclaimed to PEOPLE. Years later, performing 10,000 feet up in the air for a 2009 Breast Cancer Research Foundation benefit, Etheride said, "My health is better now than it's ever been. Cancer woke me up."

                              CHRISTINA APPLEGATE
Age at diagnosis: 36
After watching her mother battle cancer twice,Applegate was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2008 and underwent a double mastectomy, even though cancer was only detected in one of her breasts. "Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I scream, and I get really angry," the actress, now cancer-free and the mother of a 2-year-old daughter admitted on Good Morning America, adding, "I think it's all part of healing."

                                    GIULIANA RANCIC
Age at diagnosis:
37
"The second I heard 'cancer,' I just remember my head went down, the ground went away, and I just dropped through the earth, and I was just dropping, falling," the E! host recalled on her reality show after learning she had brest cancer during a 2011 mammogram while undergoing a round of in-vitro fertilization. But Rancic, who underwent a double lumpectomy and a double mastectomy to treat the cancer, just marked a very special milestone: her first Mother's Day with 8-month-old son Edward Duke.

                                             BETTY FORD
Age at diagnosis:
56
Only weeks after husband Gerald Ford became president in the wake of Richard Nixon's resignation, the first lady was diagnosed with a malignant breast tumor – and broke convention by speaking out about it in the Oct. 7, 1974, issue of Newsweek. "I once asked, 'Why did you come out and discuss your cancer?'" friend Nancy Brinker, who started the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, recalled to People in 2011. "She said, 'People are put on earth to do things like this.'" Ford's candor led to growing awareness among American women, including the practice of early detection, such as mammograms.

                                       SHERYL CROW
Age at diagnosis: 44
Just weeks after calling off her engagement to Lance Armstrong, the singer was diagnosed with an early stage of breast cancer in February 2006, later undergoing a lumpectomy and radiation treatment. "I've had so many people [say to] me, 'Gosh, you know, everything's really gone wrong for you this year,' and it took me going through that to realize that everything really went right for me," she said on the Oprah Winfrey Show. "It brought me to this point where I am now, and I really feel like I have a lot of clarity."

KYLIE MINOGUE
Age at diagnosis:
36
After an initial misdiagnosis , the Australian pop star postponed her Showgirl tour to undergo treatment for breast cancerin 2005,. "When you are stripped of everything and you have to grow your eyelashes back, grow your hair back, it's just astonishing," Minogue later opened up in the November 2007 issue of British Glamour. "It's hard to express what I've learned from that, but a deep psychological and emotional shift has obviously taken place."