By Hannah Roberts and Casey Cooper-Fiske PA Senior Entertainment Reporters,Sion Morgan
Copyright walesonline
Pop star Anastacia has revealed she reached out to Jessie J with “some good love” after her breast cancer diagnosis, having been diagnosed with the disease herself back in 2003. The US singer, who is best known for songs such as Left Outside Alone, I’m Outta Love and Sick And Tired, told the PA news agency she often reaches out to fellow artists to offer help, adding she had “no idea” how younger artists were coping with the modern music industry. Speaking about reaching out to the Price Tag singer, whose real name is Jessica Cornish, she told PA: “I reached out to Jessie J, and gave her some good love with what she’s going through. “Wherever I can be able to send positive energy, because the business is hard and life is hard. “I don’t think that there’s a problem that you can’t support another lady, I think that women have to support women in this world, and we have it hard enough that if we don’t hold each other’s backs, the guys aren’t going to do it. “So at this point ladies, stay friends and realise that they’ll always be there for you when when things go down.” Cornish announced in June this year that she had been diagnosed with early breast cancer and that she would be undergoing treatment, and has since been forced to cancel her UK and Europe tour in October along with shows in the US in November after she revealed a second operation was needed. Anastacia, whose full name is Anastacia Newkirk, also reflected on her own diagnosis saying she was “shocked that no one really spoke about it” and urged people to check themselves even if they do not have a family history of the disease. The 56-year-old explains: “I was very lucky to catch it early, so was Jessie, in that stage of, you’re not in stage four and fighting for your life, but it also doesn’t mean that, you know. “I really commend her for being very open and honest, and I also feel that she probably feels like I wanted to do my music, like I was doing my music and I was just enjoying being a mum, and having my music, and now I have this stuff, and it’s so frustrating to have to be sideswiped when stuff was just happening.” The Chicago-born singer goes on to say the best advice she would give to “any person going through health stuff or going through emotional stuff” is to “always remember through the darkness comes light”. She adds: “The word cancer was such a scary word, but in my life with cancer, I was like, ‘yo, what are the first three letters of that word’, right? “So there is always a way to find a positive when you think it’s not.” As well as supporting her fellow artists who are going through a tough time, Anastacia is also a proud ally for the LGBT community, and has said she has had to ditch friends who do not align with her support. The singer explains: “I’ve given up friends that supported the Trump administration because I felt that they were crushing on the lives of my friends and my people. “I was like, ‘oh, no, if you can vote for that person, then that means you don’t care, first of all about me, because I love this person, and that isn’t what I want around me’, but I didn’t have to do it negatively. “I was like, ‘I appreciate our friendship, I appreciate the time, I wish you well, but I cannot share my energy with you, because your energy is disagreeing with everything that is me right now, and everything I want to put my time into, so bye’. “Man, the LGBTQIA community, my black community, all the colours, shall we say, because I am the living role model of a white chick, and I don’t know what it’s like to be a black person. “I don’t know what it’s like to be marginalised in a way where, if I was a drag queen walking down the street, it would be marginalised. “These are times when we have to be teaching the white people that you’re not aware, and you need to be aware. “Because you think you’re not racist, but you need to look deeper and say the fact that you are not teaching other people that they probably have this like unaware racism, which means they need to be more hypersensitive. “It’s not about you did anything wrong, but do you know what they go through every day? Do you know what it’s like to walk in the shoes of a black person? Do you know what it’s like every day, they can tell someone doesn’t like them for no reason other than the way they look. “It’s a horrible thing to do to someone, and so for me, I stand by love, light and happiness, and no one can take that away from me, which is why when it gets negative, I really get it, but it doesn’t have more power than the positivity.” Anastacia’s music is marked by her raw and soulful vocals, which stand at odds with the smooth and overproduced tones of many pop singers, and the star cannot believe she has made it to the 25th anniversary of her debut album, which she will be embarking on a UK and Ireland tour to celebrate in 2026. She says: “Think of 25, 25 is like that big number that you want to get to in life, whether it’s marriage or where you’re close to pension, or you get that special bump up in your salary, and those are the kind of the years you put in where you really get the star. “When I felt like, ‘oh, my God, I’m going to be doing the tour for the 25th anniversary’, when I was putting it together last year, I was like, ‘I did it’, I got there, whether or not we continue to get there, we went there, we got there.” Released in 2004, Anastacia’s debut record Not That Kind featured some of her best known songs in the title track, I’m Outta Love, Cowboys And Kisses, and Made For Lovin’ You, the album featured a sound which merged pop with 1980s funk, and even included country elements. The singer, who has had six top 10 albums in the UK, said the upcoming tour will be particularly special as she “never toured my first album”, and added that the reception on her 2025 UK and Europe tour had been “way more incredible than I could have asked for”. Anastacia’s 2026 NTK Tour will begin on her birthday on September 17, and see her perform at venues including London’s OVO Wembley Arena, Dublin’s 3Olympia and Glasgow’s SEC Armadillo.
