Fran Drescher believes her cancer and being raped are linked
Fran Drescher believes the stress and trauma of being raped were factors that led to her cancer diagnosis 15 years later.
The actress — who was raped at gunpoint during a home invasion in 1985 — told Page Six she thinks her weakened immune system from not processing the rape was one of the reasons she ended up with cancer in 2000.
“I experienced trauma as a rape victim and for years I really didn’t dive into how it impacted me emotionally, I just kind of got on with my life,” she told us at the book launch for “N is for The Nanny” on Thursday.
“I think, it’s, you know, not a coincidence that I didn’t deal with being raped and ended up with gynecological cancer.”
Drescher — who was diagnosed with uterine cancer in 2000 and underwent an immediate radical hysterectomy after two years of misdiagnoses by a host of doctors — also told us she believed toxic exposure also was part of giving her cancer.
“Americans are in a revolving door of toxic exposure, chronic illness and drug dependency,” she told us, adding that we have to “break the shackles” and “start really examining what is weakening our immune system, why our bodies are reacting in a way that’s chronic illness.”
The whole ordeal led “The Nanny” star, 65, to create Cancer Schmancer in 2007, a non-profit organization dedicated to women’s cancers.
She told us that her “passion” and “life mission” is “trying to have the American public, and the world for that matter, pivot from trying to fix and end symptoms, to pivot and ask ourselves, ‘What are we doing in our lives that’s making us so sick in the first place?'”
And one of those things is her belief that “we all have to get out of the chemical business.”
She explained to us that people need to dial it back to the days when ingredients were grown “in your grandma’s garden.”
“Strong smelling things, wrinkle-free fabrics, industrially farmed food, personal care items that are filled with chemicals.”
All proceeds from “N is for The Nanny” go to Cancer Schmancer.