Sharon Stone received the Award of Courage at the Women's Cancer Research Fund's An Unforgettable Evening fundraising gala on Thursday. Her inspiring speech as she picked up her award brought her to tears and ended with a standing ovation from everyone in the room. Guests included Rebel Wilson, Rachel Zoe, Kathy and Rick Hilton, Lori Loughlin, Olivia Jade Giannulli, Paul Wesley, and NJ Falk.
Maroon 5 closed the scene performing a series of their biggest hits in a performance they donated to the cause of the night, but without a doubt the star of the night was Stone for his inspiring words about the benign tumors that she suffered and that, thankfully, They were not cancer. "Those mammograms are not fun," the actress began by explaining.
Sharon Stone said that when she was diagnosed with breast tumors in one breast, she asked to have a double mastectomy if they were malignant: "'If you open me up and it's cancer, please take both my breasts,' I told them, because I'm not a person defined by my breasts. You know, that might seem funny coming from me since everyone has seen them."
The actress surprised by acknowledging that "you've all seen them since surgery and you don't even know it. So don't ever feel compelled not to get a mammogram, blood test or surgery because it doesn't matter. I'm standing here telling you that they removed a tissue and a half and more from my breasts and none of you noticed." Stone underwent breast reconstruction surgery in 2001 after doctors removed benign tumors that she said were "gigantic, bigger than my breasts alone."
In this speech, Stone also explained that her stylist came to do her hair for tonight's event after receiving her first chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer. "They told her she's going to lose her hair in a week, so tonight before I got my hair done, we picked out her hats, her beanies, her rags, her lipsticks and we made sure she was going to look great and she was going to have some way to deal with it. And that was a lot of fun. A lot of fun."
It was while discussing her stylist's illness that Stone broke down in tears as she tried to galvanize attendees to donate more funds in an impassioned demonstration that recalled her decades of activism to raise funds for HIV and other causes. on behalf of organizations like amfAR.
A few months ago, the actress announced that she has a tumor that needed to be removed and that it was found after a previous misdiagnosis that made her go to the hospital and undergo unnecessary surgery. She did not address this issue in this speech, but, as she recounted last November, she suffered from a large fibroid tumor that needed to be removed. Although the actress did not provide further details, fibroid tumors are generally non-cancerous masses that grow in her uterus. They are also known as myoma, leiomyoma, leiomiomata or fibromyoma.
