Pop beauty and Strictly Come Dancing star Anastacia has boldly stripped off to show the scars left by her double mastectomy and candidly discussed her cancer battle.
The 48-year-old American singer has beaten breast cancer twice – with the decision to undertake a double mastectomy in 2013 during her second fight with the disease.
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Getting the all clear later that year, it has been a long battle for the star – involving 10 procedures and five surgeries – but she says she is now ready to reclaim her femininity and says the scars left behind by her life-saving surgery are something she can be proud of.
“My scars are a part of me and I want to be the one to reveal them,” the I’m Outta Love legend said following her bold Fault magazine cover shoot – adding it was important for her to control how the public see her scars for the first time.
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“If paparazzi photographed them, I’d feel like I was being shamed but being able to release them this way, I feel extremely empowered,” she told the magazine.
Sounding at ease with the physical reminder of her surgery, the star reveals that this wasn’t always the case.
“I resented how large [the scars] were but I also understood why I needed to go through all the physical changes,” she said.
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“My scars are part of my journey and a reminder of all the things I went through with my mastectomy. At this point, I feel great to show them in a way that’s artistic,” she adds.
Anastacia says taking part in Strictly – in which the scar tissue from her surgery was painfully torn during the first elimination weekend preventing her from competing in the dance off but saved by the judges regardless – has helped her feel feminine again.
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“Every little thing that I’m doing, including Strictly Come Dancing was me trying to reclaim a little piece of my femininity that cancer stole from me,” she said.
“When you have as many surgeries as I’ve had, you lose so many female sensations that you’ll never get back. Nipple sensation is something that cancer robbed from my anatomy and I’m used to it now but there is that little part of me that will always be lost,” she adds.
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Anastacia also encourages all women to undergo mammograms as she thinks it is crucial for cancer to be caught as early as possible.
‘If you’re a young woman in your mid twenties, then just get it done and you can have peace of mind until you’re thirty years old,” she advises.
“In your thirties go every two or three years depending on your doctor’s advice and then after thirty-five, it’s safest to go each year. Find it early and you’re done and it’s so much easier,” she continues.
“Cancer and death needn’t go hand in hand, if you catch it early you can live with it and seek treatment – it’s not spotting it early enough that’s scary,” she adds.
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