Anastacia reveals how Elton helped her through her battle with breast cancer.

Anastacia hailed Sir Elton John for his help as she lauded him with praise for helping her get through her battle with cancer. She described the enigmatic entertainer as a her own personal guardian angel after he spent a lot of time helping her deal with her illness. Anastacia, 44, told ITV1’s Lorraine that she was massively comforted by Elton, 65, when she battled her breast cancer in 2003, at age 35.

The soulful pop star said: "He is just a shepherd. He’s a shepherd with music, he’s a shepherd with ailments, he’s just such a giver and he’s my little angel. He’s my fairy godmother, you know." At 13, Anastacia was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, an intestinal disorder she still has to keep in check. In 2003, suffering from back trouble and seeking surgery to reduce her breasts, a routine mammogram revealed a particularly virulent form of breast cancer.

Months of radiation therapy followed and she told Lorraine: "Technically I really had to end up taking care of myself and I'm not the best at that, so this year is a different year for me. It’s eating right and taking care of myself and looking at things a little bit differently than I did before. So I think I have a delayed reaction to my cancer because I just wanted to write songs and help other people, and then I was like, ‘I think I need my own attention’."

The American star, who is supporting Lorraine’s Touch, Look, Check campaign, added: "I was so naïve when I started in this business, even though I was older, I had no idea. I had never travelled outside of America, I didn’t really realise the world was the world, I thought it was a globe in my school. So I definitely had a lot to learn about things and when I got diagnosed with breast cancer, the world kind of stopped for a minute."

Touch, Look, Check is a campaign to make all women in the UK aware of the five warning signs of breast cancer. The latest research from Breakthrough Breast Cancer reveals that 98 per cent of women don’t know what these warning signs are. All week Lorraine viewers can text the word TLC to 84424 to receive information on breast cancer and the signs they should be looking out for.

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