October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I “recognized” it on Monday morning by getting a mammogram and a 3D ultrasound. (I have dense breast tissue, so the office was able to get me preapproved for the ultrasound rather than making me come back for it like I did last year.) Speaking of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Elizabeth Hurley is celebrating her 30th anniversary as a global ambassador for Estée Lauder’s Breast Cancer Campaign. To raise awareness, Liz sat down with The Times to talk about the campaign, what inspired her to do it, and why she feels that it’s so important to destigmatize talking about it. She also gushes about her relationship with Billy Ray Cyrus and talks about the one subject that’s been on everyone’s mind: their hair!
Why she started doing the campaign: “I asked [Evelyn Lauder] what it was for and she explained how women all over the world were dying of breast cancer and no one was talking about it and she wanted to change that. It immediately resonated with me because my grandmother had just died of breast cancer. She was embarrassed, she didn’t want people to know she had cancer, especially not in the breast. It wasn’t spoken about. We knew absolutely nothing about the treatment she was going through. That’s just the way it was then. So really, when I started with Evelyn, it was to get the conversation going, to try to raise awareness and destigmatise talking about breast cancer.”
On how women never put themselves first: “Women have always felt that looking after themselves is somewhat self-indulgent. We always put everybody else first. We put our kids first, our houses first, our husbands first, our mothers-in-law, whoever — we put everybody first and we seem to put ourselves last. There has always been the feeling that it’s self-indulgent to put ourselves first. What we are trying to say now is, if we are indeed the caretakers of the world, we can’t take care of anyone if we’re not there.”
60 is a mere 1/6 of her life: “I haven’t noticed a difference. You start doing fractions and milestones. Decades are a very easy way to do fractions. I can now say I’m 60 and I’ve been working for the Estée Lauder company on the breast cancer campaign for one in two of my days on this Earth. Right? I’ve been raising funds for breast cancer research for half my life.”
She will not grocery shop with Billy Ray: “Obviously he loves England. The weather is nicer here in the summer than it is in Tennessee. He lives 40 minutes outside of Nashville. It’s so beautiful. Funnily enough, it actually looks a lot like England. Probably the equivalent of Surrey.” So what do they do together when she’s in “Surrey Tennessee” — do they go to the supermarket? “I do, but he stays in the car.” Because he’d get mobbed? “Because he would be annoying,” she says, laughing.
On their ‘luxurious’ locks: “I cut his hair the other day. We do have a lot of hair between us. We’re in constant danger of choking on hairballs. He has got very fuzzy hair. Before his is done it’s out here,” she says, mimicking a great big, bouffant hairdo with her hands. “So we’ve actually got contrast hair, which we aim to make look the same in the end.”
This quip made me laugh: ”We do have a lot of hair between us. We’re in constant danger of choking on hairballs.” Well, you know what they say. The couple that does their hair together stays together. I have this picture in my head of Billy Ray and Liz braiding each other’s hair and gossiping about all of their famous friends. I’m actually cracking myself up thinking about it. I bet they also get couples massages and mani/pedis together. They just give off that vibe. Speaking of vibes, Elizabeth does not give me “I go to the supermarket” vibes. Neither does Billy Ray, although he gives QuikMart vibes.
It’s kind of crazy that Liz has now been doing Estée Lauder’s campaign for literally half of her life. That’s pretty admirable. I didn’t know that story about her grandmother’s experience with breast cancer. Raising awareness and destigmatizing women’s health issues is so important. Not only does it help women feel like they’re not alone, it can also save lives. Elizabeth is also right about how you measure your years on Earth differently the older you get. Every few years, I find myself more aware of this. Time morphs and we define it differently with every passing milestone and experience.
Finally, Liz also mentioned that she does her own breast exam every month using this video. I’m sharing it in case anyone finds it useful:
Photos credit: James Warren/Bang Showbiz/Avalon, Jules Annan/Avalon, Tina Korhonen/Avalon