Kathy Bates says she enjoys 'not having breasts' after cancer: 'They were like 10 pounds when they removed them'
The "Matlock" star also explains why she chose not to have reconstructive surgery.
Kathy Bates is okay with being without her breasts, after having had a double mastectomy following a breast cancer diagnosis more than a decade ago. Really.
"This is really weird maybe...but I had really heavy breasts," the Matlock star said on Tuesday's episode of the MeSsy with Christina Applegate & Jamie-Lynn Sigler podcast. "They were like 10 pounds when they removed them. Really big breasts. And I kind of enjoy not having breasts. It's strange."
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Kathy BatesNow 76, Bates explained to the hosts that others had questioned her decision not to have reconstructive surgery.
"There was a friend of mine that was concerned when I decided not to have reconstruction," Bates said, "’cause at the age I was, I thought, I really don't wanna go through that, and I just didn't wanna go through it, you know? I wasn't in a relationship. I was older, and I didn't think that I would be in a relationship. And so it was kind of like, 'Why do I have to?'"
Related: Kathy Bates on battling the 'abject terror' of leading the new Matlock
The Oscar winner said her freshman CBS reboot has found a smart way to handle her wardrobe.
"At Matlock, they devised a really cool — it's Spanx-ish — kind of camisole, very thin straps...and they put little, you know, falsie cups in it," Bates said. "And they 're so comfortable, and they give me a nice shape. And that's it! I mean, I feel so good when I go out like that."
She noted that, before that, she sometimes opted to stay in.
"For a while, I just didn't go out with any prophylactics...or at all," she said. "Or I went out with them [and] they're hot and heavy, and they made me unhappy."
Bates was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2003, then underwent treatment. In 2012, she revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, which ran in her family.
"My aunt had died from it, my mother had it, my niece had it," Bates told PEOPLE in August 2018.
In her new show, she plays the whip-smart but unassuming Madeline Matlock, who comes out of retirement to join a prestigious law firm where she slyly solves cases.
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