Applegate posed for nude pics before surgery

Reuters

NUDE SNAPS: Christina Applegate, seen here at the recent Emmy Awards, posed for a series of private nude photos the night of her double masectomy surgery.

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Actress Christina Applegate has told of posing for a private nude photo shoot so she can always remember the breasts she lost to cancer.

The actress, who was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year, had both breasts removed in a successful bid to stop the disease from spreading.

Applegate told Oprah Winfrey's talk show she held an emotional, private ceremony on the evening of her surgery.

"I did my first and last nudie photo shoot at home," she said.

"I made sure that I have close-up photographs of them from every angle, so I can kind of remember them."

The former Married ... With Children star told Oprah doctors implanted "expanders" into her chest, over which they will eventually sculpt her fake replacement breasts.

"They keep expanding over a few months until they take those out and put in your implants.

"They have this strange little thing that they insert in there and they keep filling it up with saline to expand behind the muscles."

Applegate, who made her first public appearance since the surgery at the recent Emmy Awards, said her chest looked nothing like it did before the surgery.

"You've got scarring and there's a lot of things you're missing (and) the shape is not the same and it doesn't feel the same and it's hard to carry your purse and there are so many limitations.

"It's sad. I cry at least once a day about it because it's hard to overlook it when you're standing there in the mirror."

She said there was one upside to the surgery: "I don't have to wear a bra ... ever again."