Olivia Newton-John Opens Up About Recent Cancer Scare

Olivia Newton-John is grateful to be alive, and we’re grateful she’s still with us to talk about it. The icon has had a rough few months, and recently she sat down with People for an update on her health.

“Those things are so stupid. Why not just go, ‘Here I am, and I’m fine!’” she said of why she immediately took to social media with a smiley denial video in the wake of the rumors that she was dying. “We just nipped it in the bud.”

Still, she is in the midst of treating stage 4 breast cancer after having been first diagnosed in 1992, and secretly overcoming a stint in 2013. Additionally, Olivia has spent the last six months recovering from a fractured pelvis, a side effect of the weakening of her bones due to cancer, which this time has spread to her sacrum.

Her new memoir Don’t Stop Believin’ is out March 12 in the U.S. “I always felt empowered when I sang it,” she said of 1976 song, which inspired the title of her book.

Of the song’s message, she said. “You’ll get by and bad days will hurry by — what could be more perfect?”

Read the interview at People.