Anastacia: 'I feel more womanly than ever'

AFTER a lifetime of ill health, singer Anastacia suffered her cruellest blow of all when she was told she had cancer.

Forty per cent of her left breast was removed, and the same amount from her healthy right breast to even out the size.

She went through agonising radiation treatment without being able to use painkillers because she has Crohn's disease, which stops them working.

But a year later, after doctors gave her the all clear, she is looking more glamorous than ever.

And she has emerged from her ordeal with her sense of humour intact.

'I'm the most diseased pop star out there,' said the 31-year-old American who has had a string of hits in the UK including I'm Outta Love and One Day In Your Life. 'I'm proud of my title, gosh darn it. I wear it well.'

In addition to Crohn's disease, which causes intestinal inflammation, Anastacia suffers from chronic back pain and a herniated disc in her neck.

The cancer was detected when she went to hospital for a breast

reduction operation to ease the back pain.

A routine mammogram detected a tiny, tell-tale pattern in her left breast - which would have been impossible to detect by self-examination.

'It was growing like little flowers in my milk duct, the size of salt sprinkles,' she said.

'If it hadn't been for that technician, I wouldn't have known until I was so sick it had advanced to bone cancer.'

She told Red magazine: 'I don't feel that the cancer changed me, but maybe getting older has. I feel like I'm just coming into my womanhood - strange as that may sound right after breast cancer.

'I feel more womanly, and I'm liking it. I can do a photoshoot and still feel sexy and wonderful, and I don't have to have implants the size of Kingdom Come.

'I'm living proof that you can go through breast cancer and still find yourself attractive for who you are.