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
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.
“I’ve had all of them, many different times over, but the reason why I got through them faster is because I don’t like to feel that.
“I don’t want to feel stressed. I don’t want to feel annoyed. I believe in positive affirmation and positive thinking and a brighter tomorrow, and that philosophy can get you through a negative situation much easier.”
With a health history like hers, it’s inevitable the performer, whose other smash hits include Not That Kind, Paid My Dues and Boom – official song of the 2002 World Cup – has plenty to say about the Daily Express’s Give US Our Last Rights campaign to encourage MPs to debate the thorny topic of assisted dying in the House of Commons.
It’s clear she is broadly supportive of allowing terminally ill people who are mentally sound to choose to end their lives with dignity. It is an issue the Express has been campaigning on for some time, most recently with That’s Life! legend Dame Esther Rantzen, who is herself suffering stage 4 cancer and has signed up with Dignitas.
“I believe everybody’s choice is their choice,” says Anastacia. “Whatever somebody really feels they need to do, they should be allowed to do.
“You don’t have to be public about it like me and try to save the world, but I think we should respect everyone’s choice. And I respect everyone’s choice not to be a shell of themselves. And not to want that shell to be the memory of them to their loved ones.”
The diminutive 5ft 2in mezzo-soprano from Denver, Colorado, is at pains to emphasise that, whichever direction the debate takes, the ethical considerations should not be ignored and patients must be considered on a case-by-case basis.
“If you get that wrong it could be a very slippery slope,” she says. “Obviously you’re not allowed to forcibly kill someone and, clearly, I don’t believe that if you want to kill someone intentionally then that’s a good idea.”
PLAYING devil’s advocate, she continues: “What if someone is terminally ill and the family wants a little bit of money? There are literally so many different avenues that you could go down, so it’s important to consider each situation on a case-to-case basis.”
Rather than rail against the hand that life has dealt her personally, it’s clear the singer has embraced her physical and mental scars.
“People ask me, ‘Do you ever wonder what you must have done in a previous life to deserve all this?’ but I just think, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ I call all my scars roadmaps to Narnia. They lead me to a happier place.
“When I first got my Crohn’s scar – across the middle of my stomach – I thought I’d never have a boyfriend and that no one would ever love me.
“The surgeon said the scar would be on my bikini line, but he was in his 50s, and I was like, ‘Dude, I have a string bikini.’
“But those feelings of fragility didn’t last long and, from day one in this business, I never covered up my scar.
“I remember in my early 20s these guys saying stuff like, ‘Is that a caesarean?’ and I was like, ‘Firstly, it’s near my belly button’, and, ‘Secondly, what kind of women have you been dating? That’s not where a baby comes from’.”
The star, whose new album is a collection of German songs translated into English and injected with her distinctive soulful style, says of her latest music: “It gave me the
opportunity to express what I was feeling, and it felt like other people were relating to it too, so that helped massively and it’s the same on this new album.
“Initially I did think, ‘You want me to sing songs translated from German into English? That sounds like a career breaker’. But then I realised that songs like Best Days and Now Or Never totally chimed with what’s always been my mindset, basically: ‘You guys need to stop whinging about what’s happening and live your life because this is all we’ve got.’
“I love that message and it’s a narrative that’s always run through my life and it just feels like everything I want to say to the world right now.”
And as someone who has been photographed and objectified for quarter of a century by an industry obsessed with youth and beauty, Anastacia has also learned that it’s what’s on the inside that’s most important.
“When I was younger, in my early 30s, when I first started, I didn’t wear make-up and I wasn’t really a girly-girl and immediately my massive record company threw make-up all over my face, made my hair completely different so that I could look what they thought was sexy, but to be honest with you, I had never thought I wasn’t.
“So the industry sort of invented this paranoia for me about my looks. I definitely went through a period where I was questioning my prettiness and feeling like I was losing it, so I did start using Botox for a period of time. Although using it helped me to not have any lines, as there was no movement on my forehead for so long, I just got to a place where I thought, ‘I’m missing my expression,’ so I stopped.
“And now as each year of my 50s passes, I start to really f***ing care less. But having said that, maybe in two years I’ll be saying, ‘Bring it on’.”
ONE THING Anastacia definitely won’t be doing in two years is sticking to any carefully choreographed masterplan. “That’s not how I work,” she smiles. “This album would not have been on my bucket list, but I’m so glad it happened, and I’ve learned so much, so I just allow things to come my way.
“I don’t try to force a bucket list because I’m nowhere near wanting to have a bucket yet and I feel until that time comes when I feel like, ‘Right, I really better do this as I might be checking out soon,’ I’ll just go with the flow. Life is full of surprises and terrible accidents but none of us know when we’re destined to check out, so for me I just like to keep going.
“I have never given up, but that’s my normal. It’s not everyone’s normal. And if I can help someone else feel like they can do it because I can do it, then great, but I accept that it’s not frickin’ easy for someone that doesn’t think like me.
“I just realised I didn’t want to be the whinger and I hope when all is said and done that’s how people will remember me. I want people to say, ‘Anastacia… she lived her life with positivity, humour, optimism, joy, love for all humans and that she wanted to make the world a better place’.”
She stops, laughs and adds: “Oh My God! You’re not going to use that, are you?”