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Brad Pitt called Angelina Jolie's decision to have a preventative double mastectomy "absolutely heroic," a sentiment his mother, Jane Pitt, echoes.

"We're so very proud of Angie," Jane Pitt said in a statement, according to People magazine. "This means so much to our family, especially our grandchildren. We love her dearly."

Also speaking out in support of the mother of six is her brother, James Haven.

"My sister, like our mother, always put her children first," Haven said in his own statement. "I am so grateful to be her brother."

Jolie, 37, wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece that she chose to undergo three months of medical procedures after genetic testing showed that she had an 87 percent chance of developing breast cancer. Her own mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died of ovarian cancer at 56.

Now, "I can tell my children that they don't need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer," she wrote. "They know that I love them and will do anything to be with them as long as I can."