AMERCIAN singer songwriter, Anastacia, has had her fair share of highs and lows in her life.

She battled the crippling pain of Crohn’s disease in childhood and was devastated when her father walked out.

At the age of 30, she finally found the fame she had been working for (she has now sold 50 million records worldwide, including five Top 10 albums in the UK).

But just four years later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She survived it, only to be given the devastating news in 2013 that the disease had returned.

Now after a double mastectomy, she’s finally cancer-free, back on top, and is about to embark on her new Ultimate Collection Tour which includes a date at the BIC on June 10 this summer.

It’s a damp, dreary afternoon when I call to speak to the 48-year-old star who is like a ray of sunshine by comparison - but then she is hanging out with her mates at home in Miami.

“It is disgustingly sunny here,” she laughs. “We are going to have some fun, run around in the sea and have some Italian food or a barbecue at the weekend. Who knows what we will get up to - we are a little mischievous!”

When I ask if this is the calm before the storm of being back on the road for months, she laughs and says it’s the other way around.

“This is the storm before the calm girlfriend!” she hoots.

“I’m just letting it all out now so I can do what I do and be a good girl on tour.”

Anastacia says she is looking forward to getting back to the UK in spite of her stint on Strictly last year. (She came under fire after she failed to perform in the dance off due to injury).

“When I got injured of course it wasn’t my ankle or my head. It was in the boob and that was the whole reason I was there for breast cancer awareness.

“I was like really?! God is working in a very mysterious way here. Of course I got injured there. But although it was uncomfortable it wasn’t life threatening and I don’t have any regrets. I still have two boobs - hurray!”

During her time in the UK, Anastacia also posed naked for a magazine shoot which she says was her way of ‘reclaiming her body’ after surgery.

“I had to find other muscles in my body to create the breasts that I have now which left some huge scars and I’ve been really nervous ever since about getting ‘papped’ with them so I figured if I had control over the pictures that would be better.”

If all this wasn’t enough to deal with she has also been diagnosed with a heart condition.

“Sometimes it’s felt like a different disease, a different month, but you have to be optimistic.You have to be, because if you look at it another way you’re in that dark place and you can’t be in a dark place with a disease that can cripple you.

“Everybody should take a leaf out of that book - it would help a lot of people to have a bit more positivity in their life.”

“Now my life is positive - you have to go through the hard part to find the silver lining. You go whoa - ok what am I going to do about it because I have always been that kind of a person.

Something happens fight or flight - I attack with love and sometimes fierceness.

When I wrote my last project after my mastectomy - I wrote sensitive project - finally direction weight lifted off my shoulders - a weight I’d carried for the last decade

But Anastacia says her experiences of life have always had a direct impact on her songwriting.

“The album I’m writing now for September is the most emotional I’ve written - but all my songs go through the same process. I write them in the moment.”

“Everything I’ve gone through in the last three years is collectively going into this album - the world’s problems, my friends’ situations wherever I get the story I’ll write about it - will be interesting to see what comes out of it - see what happens once I’m done in June - new album.

Anastacia says she’s often ‘in the moment’ on stage too!

“You never know what’s going to come out of my mouth. Fans say they come to a lot of shows because I’m different every night. Is that a good thing? Maybe I am just a bit schizophrenic?!”