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Sylvie van der Vaart, Netherlands’ Sexiest Female in 2003: A Breast Cancer Survivor
– Reported, November 05, 2012
Sylvie has been in a relationship with footballer Rafael van der Vaart since 2003. On 10 June 2005, Sylvie married Rafael and on 28 May 2006,
their son Damián Rafael was born. Some of the media have described the couple as the “new Beckhams” but both of them denied the claims saying that they prefer to just live a normal life.
After being elected the Netherlands’ Sexiest Female in 2003, she started a relationship with then-AFC Ajax footballer Rafael van der Vaart. Due in part to the fame from their individual careers, they soon become the Netherlands’ most famous “football couple”. Their fame grew after their marriage on 10 June 2005 and live coverage of the wedding on SBS6, a Dutch television channel, with the broadcast gaining high ratings in the Netherlands; Sylvie took Rafael’s last name, van der Vaart.
On 16 June 2009, she announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and had undergone surgery in May 2009. She has finished post-op chemotherapy and is cancer free. In the summer of 2009, Real Madrid wanted to sell Rafael van der Vaart, but the player decided to stay in Madrid because Sylvie was undergoing cancer treatments there.
A year later, upon his move to England, Rafael stated “She had a very serious illness and it is true that she had to be treated at the Clinica Quiron. Last season, they wanted me to leave but I couldn’t leave for that reason. Now she is well and the only thing that happened was that Madrid wanted to sell and I wanted to get back to enjoying playing football, and Tottenham are a great team that are going to give me the football opportunities that I need.”
After, Sylvie found a lump in her breast, and was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the time, she said learning the news was devastating.
For me, it was as if a bomb had gone off under our lives. Whether you are rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, young or old, cancer knows no boundaries. All the luxuries in the world are no protection against that moment when you are told the diagnosis. Then you are just a woman.
Her treatment included surgery and six months of preventive chemotherapy. When she began losing her hair to the chemo, she had her head shaved and ordered a wig. She wore her wig as a judge on Germanys Got Talent. But by the time she appeared on Lets Dance, Germanys version Dancing With The Stars, she had a couple of inches of hair. Encouraged by Rafael, she bravely decided to shed her wig, live, in the middle of a dance number. She said:
It was a new beginning. Every centimetre of hair was life for me.
Sylvies cancer in remission, she returned to the catwalk earlier this year, modeling for Hunkemöller, an Amsterdam-based lingerie company.