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Angelina Jolie's recovery an 'adventure'

Los Angeles - Angelina Jolie's family made her recovery from a double mastectomy an "adventure".

On Tuesday, the actress revealed she'd had both her breasts removed after learning she had an 87% chance of developing breast cancer because the BRCA1 gene mutation had been identified in her.

Now, her fiancé Brad Pitt has revealed how he and their six children - Maddox, 11, Pax, nine, Zahara, eight, Shiloh, six, and four-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne - supported Angelina during her recuperation.

Speaking in an interview with the USA Today newspaper, Brad said: "We set up our own little post-op recovery that became pretty fun. You make an adventure out of it.

'My proudest thing is our family'

"[It was] an emotional and beautifully inspiring few months. And I'll tell you, it's such a wonderful relief to come through this and not have a spectre hanging over our heads. To know that that's not going to be something that's going to affect us. My proudest thing is our family. This isn't going to get that."

Brad, 49, is extremely proud of his 37-year-old wife-to-be and her decision for making such a difficult decision and for being brave to publicly reveal her ordeal

He added: "I'm quite emotional about it, of course. She could have stayed absolutely private about it and I don't think anyone would have been none the wiser with such good results. But it was really important to her to share the story and that others would understand it doesn't have to be a scary thing. In fact, it can be an empowering thing, and something that makes you stronger and us stronger."

Angelina decided to be tested for the gene after losing her 56-year-old mother Marcheline Bertrand to ovarian cancer in 2007 and has now reduced the likelihood of being diagnosed with the illness to five per cent.

She was also identified as having a 50% risk of ovarian cancer.

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