Cynthia Nixon: "I had breast cancer"

Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon has revealed for the first time that she was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago.

The 42-year-old redhead -- known for playing feisty attorney Miranda Hobbes on the HBO hit -- said she had gone for a "completely routine mammogram" in 2006 when she got a call from her gynecologist.

"She says, 'Well I have some, it's not such great news,'" Nixon revealed on Tuesday's Good Morning America.

Even though Nixon admits to feeling "scared ... I was very cognizant of it," she said. "If it's going to happen, this is the best way for it to happen - that it's found so early, and we can just get right on it."

She said she "made a big point" of telling her two children she had the disease.

"I basically told them they found some cancer in my right breast," Nixon -- who is currently dating NYC-based activist Christine Marinoni, following a 2003 split from beau, Danny Mozes -- recalled saying. "It's very small and it's very early.

"I'm going to have an operation, they're going to take it out, and then we're going to have six-and-a-half weeks of radiation, every weekday," she went on. "This is what grandma went through, and I'm going to be fine."

Nixon — who said she kept her diagnosis private because "I didn't want paparazzi at the hospital" — revealed that her mother had also overcome breast cancer.

"As the daughter of a breast cancer survivor," knowing my personal risk made me more aware and more empowered when I faced my own diagnosis," she said.