I respect everyone's choice not to be a shell of themselves

Having survived a string, of potentially life-limiting diseases, US singer Anastacia is supportive of efforts to change the law on assisted dying. As the star releases her new LP, she speaks movingly about her own struggles

- Nick McGrath

WHEN IT comes to potentially lifelimiting diseases - and tackling them with dignity and grace award-winning American singersongwriter Anastacia knows what she's talking about.

"I am smashing the C-diseases right now," jokes the Chicago-born star, who burst onto the music scene in 2001 with her smash hit, I'm Outta Love, then went on to sell more than 30 million records worldwide.

"I've had Crohn's, I've had breast cancer twice. I've had cardiac disease, and when I got Covid, I was like, 'Holy s***. Is there anything else with a C I haven't gotten yet?"" It's a typically spirited response to four decades of brutal medical challenges, which began when 13-year-old Anastacia Lyn Newkirk's small intestines were removed after a Crohn's Disease diagnosis, leaving a four-inch scar across her abdomen.

In 2002, just as her pop career was going stratospheric, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully, after two years of gruelling radiotherapy, she went into remission.

Five years later, she was diagnosed with an accelerated heartbeat condition called supraventricular tachycardia, then in 2013 her breast cancer returned, ultimately resulting in an elective double mastectomy.

After 10 procedures and five surgeries, the star was finally given the all-clear. Speaking from her record company's offices in King's Cross, central London, as she releases her new album, Our Songs, she looks a decade younger than her 55 years.

"My friends say to me, 'It's so wrong to joke about your illness, Anastacia, that's such deep dark humour,' but I don't see it like that," she says.

"Some people don't just have health struggles, they have life struggles, they have work struggles, they have financial struggles and all those other struggles, and it depends on how you get through them.