Elle Macpherson has said she was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago but is now in remission despite refusing chemotherapy.
The Australian supermodel and actor, who rose to fame in the 1980s, is publishing a memoir – Elle: Life, Lessons, and Learning to Trust Yourself – in which she says she took a holistic approach to the illness, going against the advice of 32 doctors.
In an interview with the Australian Women’s Weekly, Macpherson discusses her choices after undergoing a lumpectomy seven years ago and being diagnosed with HER2-positive oestrogen receptive intraductal carcinoma – a type of breast cancer.
Macpherson, 60, said doctors advised her to undergo a mastectomy with radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy and reconstruction of her breast. But in February 2017, when she was married to the Florida developer Jeffrey Soffer, she decided against conventional medicine.
Instead, Macpherson, the founder of the beauty and wellness firm WelleCo, rented a house in Phoenix, Arizona, for eight months, where she “holistically treated” her cancer under the guidance of her primary doctor, a doctor of naturopathy, holistic dentist, osteopath, chiropractor and two therapists. In June 2017 Macpherson and Soffer separated, and later that year she began dating the disgraced anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield, though they have since split.
She said: “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.”
On her decision to reject conventional medicine, she said: “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,”, later adding she thought chemotherapy and surgery were too extreme.
Macpherson says she is in clinical remission, which she referred to as “utter wellness”. She told the magazine her sons Flynn, 26, and Cy, 21, and former partner Arpad “Arki” Busson had mixed reactions to her approach.
Typical cancer treatment centres on surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. There is no scientific or medical evidence that alternative therapies can cure cancer, Cancer Research UK (CRUK) says.
The charity says some patients use complementary or alternative therapies instead of conventional medical treatment. Examples of complementary therapies include aromatherapy, acupuncture, herbal medicine, massage therapy, visualisation and yoga.
CRUK says some complementary therapies can help people feel better but may cause side effects, while some alternative therapies may be harmful and cause side-effects as well as interfering with conventional cancer treatment.
Wakefield prompted large drops in vaccination rates in the UK and Ireland when he published a paper in the Lancet in 1998 – since retracted by the medical journal – claiming there was a link between the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), and autism and bowel disease.
His theories were subsequently debunked and his medical licence was revoked. Nevertheless, Wakefield has made a living promoting his discredited theories.
• This article was amended on 4 September 2024. Elle Macpherson was married to Jeffrey Soffer when she made her decision to reject conventional cancer treatment; a previous version said she was in a relationship with Andrew Wakefield at that time. Also, an earlier version said Macpherson had rejected some aspects of “traditional” medicine in her treatment, when “conventional” medicine was the intended meaning.
