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Bachelor Nation’s Kelsey Anderson is opening up about her mom’s battle with breast cancer after designing a bracelet to raise awareness for the disease.
“With the show, I got so many messages about people that related to my story,” Anderson, 26, told Us Weekly during an exclusive interview. “It is something that I wish that no one had to relate to. But I also think people find comfort in hearing stories that are similar to theirs and seeing someone be able to find light in it. My mom was somebody who was very positive and always found light in any situation, even whenever she was going through all these rounds of chemo and radiation and she was very sick.”
Anderson’s mom, Denise, died in 2018 after being diagnosed with breast cancer that “metastasized on her bones” within a matter of months. She spoke about the loss on season 28 of The Bachelor, which ended with her getting engaged to lead Joey Graziadei.
“But it breaks my heart a little to know how many people resonate with my story,” Anderson continued. “It is nice trying to figure out ways that I can help other people even if it’s something a little like a bracelet.”
The reality TV personality partnered with F— Cancer and Little Words Project for a special pop-up event at their Bleecker Street location in Soho, New York City, where attendees will be able to bead and buy bracelets with Anderson to raise awareness and funds for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. She also designed a bracelet that will be available from October 23 to 25.
“I felt a lot of weight on figuring out a word that could have encompassed my mom [and] watching somebody go through cancer treatments and fighting through it and all of these things,” Anderson told Us of the creative process. “And I didn’t wanna come up with a cliche word like, you know, fighter or strength. I wanted to do something a little bit different. I came up with the word ‘always’ in honor of my mom because my mom will always be with me.”
Anderson noted that there’s “so many ways that I could use ‘always’ to describe what this means to me,” including how she will “always do whatever I can to help fight this battle of cancer and how many people it affects,” and she hopes other people find their own meanings.
“And then designing the actual bracelet with the beads, I put pink in it for breast cancer awareness ’cause it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I put some pearls in it just ’cause I thought I wanted to be cute and anybody would wanna wear it with a stack,” she said. “It was a really fun process.”
In addition to raising funds for the fight against breast cancer, F— Cancer advocates for prevention and early detection.
“[My mom] initially got diagnosed because she found a lump in her armpit when she was doing a self-exam. She went in and she got it checked. They said it was fine. It wasn’t anything. She had this gut feeling and was like, ‘I just want it removed if it’s not supposed to be there.’ She ended up having stage three and stage four breast cancer,” Anderson told Us. “I think that early detection and also trusting your intuition and your instincts of your body is really important.”
Anderson has made it a practice to do her own self-exams.
“I’ve actually had two lumpectomies that I’ve had tested, and they were both benign, thankfully,” she told Us. “I think that early detection saves lives and that’s why I love F— Cancer and what they’re standing for — making sure that people understand how to do self-exams and the importance of them and how they save lives.”
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