R&B singer and actress Shanice, known for her hit “I Love Your Smile,” recently shared her experience with breast cancer, opening up about the importance of regular mammograms after an eight-year gap between screenings. 

During a recent appearance on “Good Morning America” on Wednesday (Oct. 30), the Grammy nominee revealed, “I just want to tell women how important it is to get your mammograms. If I would have gone sooner, I could have caught [my breast cancer diagnosis] when it was just at stage zero.”

Shanice’s journey began with a health scare in her mid-40s when doctors believed they had found a cancerous lump in her breast, which turned out to be a harmless cyst. The scare, however, left Shanice hesitant to return for regular screenings. “Because of the fear that I had when they thought they saw something, I didn’t go for eight years,” she said, noting that her dense breast tissue made it more challenging to detect cancer, a condition that affects many women, especially Black women.

In March 2024, the 51-year-old felt a lump and went back for a mammogram. Her screening and an ultrasound revealed cancer. Though initially thought to be ductal carcinoma in situ, a stage where cancer cells remain within the milk ducts, Shanice opted for a double mastectomy. Following her surgery in May, doctors confirmed she had a one-centimeter, stage 1 tumor. “When I had my surgery and they told me I had cancer, I literally lost my smile,” she said. “But I wanted to come on the show to encourage women that you have to keep smiling. I got my smile back.”

She continued, “If you get checked early, you can beat this thing. It’s not a death sentence. If you can get there early, you’ll live.”