(Reuters) – CNN anchor Zoraida Sambolin said on Tuesday that she had breast cancer and was getting a double mastectomy, following an announcement by actress Angelina Jolie that she had undergone that procedure.
Sambolin, who anchors CNN’s “Early Start” morning show, discussed her condition on the show while talking about Jolie’s preventive double mastectomy.
“I struggled for weeks trying to figure out how tell you that I had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was leaving to have surgery,” Sambolin, 47, said in a posting to her Facebook page. “Then .. Angelina Jolie shares her story of a double mastectomy and gives me strength and an opening.”
Sambolin told viewers she was scheduled to have the surgery on May 28.
In a New York Times op-ed piece on Tuesday, Jolie, 37, said she had a preventive double mastectomy after learning she carried a gene that made it very likely she would get breast cancer.
The Oscar-winning actress said she hoped her story would inspire other women fighting the life-threatening disease.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Von Ahn)