Actress Angelina Jolie revealed in a New York Times on Tuesday that she quietly underwent a preventive double mastectomy after discovering she carried the BRCA1 gene, which sharply increases a woman's risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer. "My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87% to under 5%," Jolie writes. "I can tell my children that they don't need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer." She says she feels "empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity."