Tracey Emin, artist: I’ve been given a second chance

Summary

The Interview: Tracey Emin, Artist — "I’ve Been Given a Second Chance"

BBC World Service / Host: Emma Barnett / Air Date: March 16, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this moving and revealing conversation, host Emma Barnett interviews British artist Dame Tracey Emin, known for her deeply personal and often provocative works. Emin reflects on her 40-year career, her ongoing major retrospective at Tate Modern, and her life-changing battle with cancer. Topics include art as healing, revisiting her iconic work "My Bed," the evolving role of women in the art world, feminism, the impact of trauma, and embracing life after surviving a terminal diagnosis. Emin's signature candor and vivid storytelling offer both inspiration and an unflinching look at survival, creativity, and resilience.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Second Life: Surviving Cancer & Transforming Perspective

• Emin describes surviving an aggressive cancer as a "second life," a pivotal moment of transformation and reflection.
  • Quote: "When you've been really nihilistic in your life, when you've been younger... you've been given a second chance. Maybe I felt remorseful as well about the indulgence of how I lived and what I did and how I... But I was everyone, you know, like, alcoholics don't want to be alcoholics, you know, drug abusers don't want to be drug addicts. People don't choose to be that way." — Tracey Emin [02:47]
• After aggressive treatment, including the removal of several organs, Emin found renewed determination to care for herself and her art.
  • Quote: "It's really hard to put the brakes on and say, right, now I'm going to treat my life differently, now I'm going to survive, now I'm going to go forward." — Tracey Emin [02:47]

2. Pain, Imagination, and Artistic Process

• Emin discusses her powerful imagination, which allows her to translate emotion and physical sensation into vividly descriptive art.
  • Quote: "If you say to me there are two mice sitting on a seashell, I immediately see the mice sitting on the seashell... It's the same with pain. I can describe it really visually, really easy for you to see. I think that's also got something to do with being an artist..." — Tracey Emin [03:53]
• Emin frames her cancer experience, despite its horror, as a catalyst for artistic creation and self-awareness.
  • Quote: "I don't mean it's lucky, but I think it's kind of good that it happened to me." — Tracey Emin [05:09]

3. Body Image, Aging, and Art

• Emin reflects on her changing relationship with her body, body image in youth, and the wisdom gained with age.
  • She recounts past self-consciousness about her nude works, recognizing their power in retrospect:
    • Quote: "I look at those photos now and I think, my god, what was I worried about? It's incredible, my body." — Tracey Emin [06:07]
• On aging and body acceptance, Emin shares her late mother’s perspective:
  • Quote: "In 10 years time, you're going to say the same thing." — Tracey Emin [06:56]

4. Women in the Art World & Feminism

• The conversation addresses the art world’s slow progress toward gender equality, referencing major milestones for women artists.
  • Quote: "Me and Fiona Rae were the first female professors ever at the Royal Academy in 235 years or something. It is still very regressive. Not the Royal Academy, but the world in general." — Tracey Emin [07:34]
• Emin openly identifies as a feminist and tackles misconceptions among younger generations:
  • Quote: "You shouldn't have to identify as a feminist, should you? You should just be able to be a woman doing what you have to do... Feminism isn't just about we should get equal pay, it's about we should get equal rights and be supported and be... championed as women and be respect what it's about. And that still isn't happening." — Tracey Emin [08:02]

5. Confessional Art, #MeToo, and Abuse

• Emin discusses the confessional nature of her art—once criticized as narcissistic—now seen as prescient in the wake of #MeToo.
• She speaks on societal revelations like the Epstein files, emphasizing that abuse is a widespread, entrenched issue regardless of class or geography.
  • Quote: "It's not about power, it's about the lack of power that these people have and how they indoctrinate and how they use, by undermining, grooming and using young girls for sex. Who does that?" — Tracey Emin [11:13]
  • "I will not feel ashamed of what happened to me when I was a child and what happened to me when I was a teenager. I won't. I will make art about it. I will talk about it." — Tracey Emin [11:13]

6. Art’s Accessibility and Emotional Impact

• Emin passionately advocates for art’s universal appeal, comparing galleries to sacred spaces that can move anyone, regardless of background.
  • Quote: "When you go into the art museum or the art gallery, you will feel very different when you come out. Something will just catch you. Something will just make you feel different... Art is one of the purely, purely amazing, good things that humankind makes... If you can just pick up on a tiny bit of that, it makes you feel really good inside." — Tracey Emin [14:58]
• Emin admits to being surprised and delighted when changed by art herself, even when skeptical at first:
  • Quote: "All my mind opens up. It's almost like birds are singing... and I feel better for that. So I'm never cynical about art. I'm always responsive. I'm more than happy to change my mind about something, and it's like being released." — Tracey Emin [16:41]

7. The Significance of "My Bed"

• Emma Barnett asks about installing Emin’s iconic 1998 work for the Tate exhibition; Emin describes the logistical difficulties and long-term emotional weight of returning to it post-cancer, in metaphorical "hazmat suits."
  • Quote: "The bed can only be shown about every five years and only for a certain amount of time... And it was really sad... Does this matter? Who is this person? Am I that person? Is any part of me left still remaining in that bed? My spirit, my soul?... It was really sad. I feel like crying now. It was really strange." — Tracey Emin [18:09–19:05]

8. Poverty, Upbringing, and the Lifeline of Art

• Emin touches on the lasting impact of childhood poverty and a lack of educational support.
  • "Being a child and being poor and living in poverty affects you for the rest of your life, however you deal with it." — Tracey Emin [21:58]
• She credits art as her saving grace throughout her life.
  • "Luckily, again, I am very lucky. I had art. I had art and I had creativity and that just pulled me through." — Tracey Emin [22:50]

9. Embracing Life After Facing Death

• On facing mortality and deciding to live with purpose after cancer:
  • Quote: "When I was told I was gonna be dead by Christmas, I thought, oh dear, and I said, death looks after itself. And what I'm gonna do now is just focus on living, which I'd never done before in my life. Ever. Ever." — Tracey Emin [24:03]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Artistic Imagination
  "So if you say to me, there's two mice sitting on a seashell, I immediately see… what they're wearing, what they're eating. I see the whole thing... And it's the same with pain." — Tracey Emin [03:53]

• On the Value of Art Spaces
  "It's like going into a church… when you go into the art museum or the art gallery, you go in and you feel. You'll feel very different when you come out. Art is one of the purely, purely amazing good things that humankind makes." — Tracey Emin [14:58]

• On "My Bed" and Memory
  "Is any part of me left still remaining in that bed? My spirit, my soul? Where is the energy from the person who created that…? It was really sad. I feel like crying now." — Tracey Emin [19:05]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:47] — Discussion on surviving cancer ("second life"), addiction, and finding self-respect.
• [03:53] — Emin's imagination, vivid experience of pain, and using suffering in art.
• [07:34] — Women’s representation in art institutions; becoming the first female professor at the Royal Academy.
• [08:02] — On feminism and the enduring need for equal rights.
• [11:13] — Addressing the reach of sexual abuse and art as a vehicle for confronting shame.
• [14:58] — Art’s accessibility, emotional impact, and advice to hesitant gallery-goers.
• [18:09–19:05] — Detailed, moving account of reinstalling "My Bed" and what it stirs personally.
• [21:58-22:50] — Effects of poverty on childhood and the life-saving role of art.
• [24:03] — New outlook on life after a terminal diagnosis.

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Tone & Style

Tracey Emin’s language is frank, vivid, and deeply personal, moving fluidly between humor, candor, and emotion. Emma Barnett creates space for both difficult truths and moments of levity, resulting in a tone that is empathetic, direct, and rich with insight.

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Summary

This episode offers an intimate portrait of Tracey Emin: an artist shaped by pain, survival, and fierce honesty, who continues to break ground for both art and women. Emin doesn’t just recount the facts of her life—she invites listeners to see, feel, and question along with her, underscoring the power of creativity as a force for resilience, connection, and change.

Transcript

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[Emma Barnett]

Hello, I'm BBC presenter Emma Barnett and this is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations and coming out of the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world.

[Tracey Emin]

If you're not a little bit afraid

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[Tracey Emin]

We have never seen a people so united.

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Do not make that boat crossing, do

[Tracey Emin]

not make that journey. Being born in America, feeling American, having people treat me like I'm not. We're more popular than populism.

[Emma Barnett]

For this interview, I met the British artist Dame Tracey Emin here at the BBC in London. She rose to fame in the 90s as a total disruptor of the art world. A member of the YBAs. Remember them young British artists. Her works, such as the sculpture My Bed, gained widespread media attention and caused a fair share of controversy. Having been at the forefront of the modern art scene for over three decades, a solo exhibition, her biggest to date, has now opened at the Tate Modern in London, showcasing 40 years of her work. She's well known for channeling her life experiences into her art. Following a difficult childhood, in which, among many things, she survived sexual abuse, Emin battled alcohol addiction throughout her adult life. However, she gave up drink after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer in 2020, which is now in remission. Tracey Emin views this whole experience and surviving Cancer, as. As a second life, when you've been

[Tracey Emin]

really nihilistic in your life, when you've been younger and then you feel sort of. For want of better. Yeah. Second life, you've been given a second chance. Maybe I felt remorseful as well about the indulgence of how I lived and what I did and how I. But I was everyone, you know, like, alcoholics don't want to be alcoholics, you know, drug abusers don't want to be drug addicts. People don't choose to be that way. They became that way. And it's really hard to put the brakes on and say, right, now it's going to stop. And now I'm going to treat my life differently now I'm going to have more respect for me now I'm going to clean this up, do that. Now I'm going to survive, now I'm going to go forward. People say to me, what would you say to your younger self of those kind of questions? And I said, main thing I'd say is that everything's going to be all right.

[Emma Barnett]

Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Tracey Emmen.

[Tracey Emin]

I've got one of those imaginations. So, for example, I have a friend that he can't imagine anything, whereas me, I am the complete, absolute opposite. So if you say to me, there's two mice sitting on a seashell, I immediately see the mice sitting on. On the seashell. I can tell you what they're wearing woolly scarves, what they're doing, what they're eating little bits of cheese in their hand. I see the whole thing right clearly. And it's the same with pain. So if you ask me to describe my pain that I'm in right now, I will tell you. In the lower part of my spine, it feels like someone's got a biro and they're sticking it between the cartilages and they're just moving it up and down slightly. That sounds painful and it is painful. And again and again, any pain that I have, I can describe it really visually, really easy for you to see. And I think that's also got something to do with being an artist, because an artist, you conjure, you pull these things out of you, especially with painting that never existed there before. And I think being in so much pain with the cancer and what happened, in a way, I don't mean it was lucky, but I think it's kind of good that it happened to me

[Emma Barnett]

because you could do something with it.

[Tracey Emin]

I could do something with it, yeah.

[Emma Barnett]

Squamous cell cancer. That's what you were diagnosed with? For people who don't know. Really serious.

[Tracey Emin]

Yeah. It's incurable when it's inside you.

[Emma Barnett]

You had a very long operation. Seven and a half hour, I believe. Removing bladder, lymph nodes, half of your vagina, urethra, part of your bowel, and a full hysterectomy. Have I missed anything?

[Tracey Emin]

Yeah.

[Emma Barnett]

I mean, what a shopping list.

[Tracey Emin]

No, there was something. And I said to my surgeon, is that it? Have you finished? And he went, no. There's also this 20% chance you won't make the surgery. You might have a heartache as you're out for so long. And they've given me six months to live without the surgery. And then also, what people don't realize with that surgery, if they leave the tiniest bit because the cancer's so aggressive, it just goes crazy. It's like.

[Emma Barnett]

And then it would be game over.

[Tracey Emin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Emma Barnett]

Your relationship with your body has been a big part of, you know, some of your work. How is your relationship with your body now?

[Tracey Emin]

I've never been anorexic, but I would only eat when I was hungry. My body was just full of muscle. When I look at pictures when I was young, I'm thinking, what was like work that's in the Tate at the moment. You've got these naked photos of me when I was like 30, 31 or something. I hated my body at that time. And the whole point of doing this thing naked was to try and come to terms with my awful body. And I look at those photos now and I think, my God, what was I worried about? It's incredible. My body. My mum said this really good thing. My mom's dead now, but a couple of years before she died, I was sitting there sort of looking really grumpy and my mom said to me, tracy, what's wrong? And I said, I'm so old. And my mum looked at me and she pointed at herself and she said, tracy, this is old. In 10 years time, you're going to say the same thing.

[Emma Barnett]

And how old do you know?

[Tracey Emin]

I'm 62. Okay, yeah, 63 this year. It doesn't matter if you have this thing when you look in the mirror that you don't like your body, you can't shake it off.

[Emma Barnett]

We're speaking now, ahead of the show, opening your big exhibition, A Second Life. You've been prolific in recent years. I know you never stopped working, but there's been a huge amount. But I was also thinking that Marina Abramovic I interviewed her just before her show opened in 2023 at the Royal Academy and I had to check that this was right. It was the first solo retrospect perspective to be given to a woman at the Royal Academy and it was 2023.

[Tracey Emin]

Yeah, well, me and Fiona Ray were the first female professors ever at the Royal Academy in 235 years or something. It is still very regressive. It is still backwards thinking. Not the Royal Academy, but the world. The world in general.

[Emma Barnett]

Do you identify as a feminist?

[Tracey Emin]

Yeah, of course I do.

[Emma Barnett]

You do?

[Tracey Emin]

Yeah.

[Emma Barnett]

I mean, for some, they don't like the. There's certain things around it. I've never thought to ask you that, but just thought of it then, and

[Tracey Emin]

the reason why you haven't thought to ask me it is because you shouldn't have to identify as a feminist, should you? You should just be able to be a woman doing what you have to do. And a lot of young people, as girls I speak to, don't want to identify as feminists. I had an argument with little, a lot of them, and they said that feminism was pathetic. It was over. It didn't stand up to anything. It was. And I said, what are you talking about? I said, as we sit here now, around the Cor, there is a woman locked in a cupboard being beaten. There is someone threatening to set themselves alight because they can't cope with the misogyny in the way that they're treated within their home or their family or their life. There's someone else being raped every day by a member of their family. The list is relentless. So feminism isn't just about we should get equal pay, it's about we should get equal rights and be supported and be. Be looked after, be championed as women and be respect what it's about. And that still isn't happening.

[Emma Barnett]

Well, the chasm between what we've allegedly got in law and how it is in society is huge.

[Tracey Emin]

It's huge.

[Emma Barnett]

I mean, even just. It's a small example. Your examples are much more urgent around abuse, physical abuse of women. And you're right, that will be happening right now, which is a really sobering point, but the example just in the art world of, of who's had a show and who hasn't, and we've got to 2023. It might sound tame compared to rape and abuse, but it is still sobering.

[Tracey Emin]

Well, no, when there was the show at the Royal Academy, Marina show, the Royal Academy said, oh, this is going to be a year where, you know, we might have Low attendance figures, low visitor numbers because we have Marina's show. I said, what are you talking about? And they said, well, we do this, they do this sort of demographic thing. And they said, you know, our usual supporters, the Royal Academy, weren't relate to Marina's work, you know, I said, no, they won't. But a whole load of young people will who've never been to the Royal Academy before. It's one of the best attended shows for a living artist. You know, it was absolutely incredible on the opening. You couldn't get in, they'd over sent out too many invites. But it was like, why? Why was she the first woman? It's. I don't know. What did they think? I had my show there with Edvard Munch and I could have easily filled up the big gallery. My show in Oslo was twice the size of the show at the Royal Academy.

[Emma Barnett]

Your work has always been described by some as confessional. You felt at times people maybe viewed it as narcissistic and yet at the same time, you could argue the world caught up, you know, with the MeToo movement, with what has gone on with the various unveilings of abuse, like more coming into the light. Not everything by any stretch. And you were raped and abused as a. As a very young girl. And I just wonder. We're talking at a time where, you know, more than a million files to do with Jeffrey Epstein have been released. As a journalist, I've tried to read through you can. Anyone can go on the Department of Justice website and read through it, but what's your response to that sort of uncovering and revealing, even though it's redacted?

[Tracey Emin]

What I think is really interesting about all the Epstein stuff is that now people are going to think this is what happens over there. I don't mean that by America, I mean over there. These are rich CEOs, politicians, people ambassadors, people of power. And these people have money and power and these people can do this, when actually the same thing is happening in a small village just down the road. The same thing is happening in, in a big city in the uk. It's not about power, it's about the lack of power that these people have and how they indoctrinate and how they use, by undermining, grooming and using young girls for sex. Who does that? And I think the shame aspect of it, like I made a whole piece of work, you know, about that, about the shame. I will not feel ashamed of what happened to me when I was a child and what happened to me when I was a teenager. I won't. I will make art about it. I will talk about it.

[Emma Barnett]

You're listening to the interview from the BBC World Service.

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[Tracey Emin]

Grocery Outlet bargain market.

[Emma Barnett]

I've been talking to Dame Tracy Emin, who's putting on a show, the biggest of her career at the moment at the Tate Modern in London. It's called Second Life because she survived cancer and she really is attacking life in a whole new way. And I was very struck by the joy that emanates from Tracy at this point of her life, but also her harrowing experience of life and all that it can throw of you. I mean, the pain that she has survived, not least struggling with endometriosis and now having to, you know, have all sorts of changes to her life because of the operations needed to survive the cancer. And yet there's so much joy and there's so much life. We met of a morning here at the BBC and her love of art, her love of life, and there was also a lot of candour and things that some people would find very hard to talk about. She just runs that which I love. Okay, let's return to that conversation with Tracey Emin. I wanted to ask about going into an art gallery. What would you say to somebody who either thinks art isn't for them or lacks the confidence to go into that space? As an adult, let's say they've not had it as a kid, and they think, nah, that's not for me. What, how, how could you entice somebody to think like that? Do you think?

[Tracey Emin]

All right, I'd say, like, so I'm not religious, Christian, anything like that. But I. When I used to live in Spitalfields, I used to love going into Christchurch, Spitalfield, because I like the architecture, I like the space, I like the quietness of it all, and I liked how it made me feel. And often I'll go into different churches, I look at the stained glass, you know, the architecture, whatever. I just want to go into that space, that hallowed space, because it makes me feel different from when I went in to when I came out. It's exactly the same with an art gallery. You don't have to know about art. You don't have to think you can respond to art or know about art or know about art history or make art. When you go into the art museum or the art gallery, you go in and you feel. Will feel very different when you come out. Something will just catch you. Something will just make you feel different. You'll be transfixed for 10 seconds staring at something, getting lost in it, and it takes you somewhere. It's like walking through nature. It's like watching the river flow. Art is one of the purely, purely amazing good things that humankind makes and does and creates for no reason at all but for art itself, for its own sake. And if you can just pick up on a tiny bit of that, it makes you feel really, really good, makes you feel good inside.

[Emma Barnett]

Do you still have moments when you go and look at art? I mean, you're quite famous. I imagine if you're walking around an art gallery, you might get stopped. But when you get to have those moments in front of a piece or not, do you still find you can be very moved?

[Tracey Emin]

This. This is the best thing that happens to me for art, okay? I can decide for whatever reason that I don't really respond to someone's work. I never got it. I never understood it, right. I think I just don't get their work, Just don't understand it. And then I'll go. I'll go to their exhibition or. Or I just see one of their works in a group show or in a bit in a museum show or something, and it stops me in my tracks. And I look at this work and I think, wow. Wow. I never saw it like that before. I never thought about it like that. And I see this work or this art in a really different way, in a different context, and I suddenly enjoy it and I suddenly start to respond to it and I'm suddenly open to it. And then all my mind opens up. It's almost like birds are singing and there's hearts flowing and, you know, it's like this really, you know, fantastic music rising and I suddenly feel really free because something. That trapped door has become open and I feel better for that. So I'm never cynical about our. I'm always responsive. I'm more than happy to change my mind about something, and it's like being released. It's fantastic.

[Emma Barnett]

A really silly question, if you'll indulge me.

[Tracey Emin]

I like silly questions.

[Emma Barnett]

Your bed. Not your bed bed. The bed, yeah. Which will be on.

[Tracey Emin]

Yes.

[Emma Barnett]

As part of this exhibition. Does all the detritus and everything just get stored as it is? Is this. Is that a really stupid question?

[Tracey Emin]

No, it's not. I didn't. I didn't. I. We installed it last week. It's really, really protected. But the bed can only be shown about every five years and only for a certain amount of time because the fragility of everything, you know, you don't want all the sheets going. Getting bleached out. You don't want. It's all got to stay anyway. And we have to wear those hazmat suits when we're putting. And. And when we're about to install it the other day, and it was hot.

[Emma Barnett]

It must also be strange because you made it and you used to touch it.

[Tracey Emin]

Yes, but I'm in the Tate and the Tate are responsible and it's. And it's protected and insured. So even though it's my bed, I don't own.

[Emma Barnett]

No, I've got to look after it,

[Tracey Emin]

the idea and everything, but it's not literally my possession anymore. And so it has to be protected and insured and everything. So it's just respectful, you know.

[Emma Barnett]

So did you put the suit on?

[Tracey Emin]

Yeah, of course I did. Yeah. No, of course. I was really, really hot. So to go and take my clothes off and put the suit on and then put the gloves on and everything, and I got really sad. It was really sad. I was going, it's sad. And why is it sad this time? I don't understand why it's sad. Last time I'd installed it, I was. Well, I was fit. I hadn't go through all of what I've gone through. And emotionally, it would have pulled something through me as I was reinstalling it. Memory sense. Of memory, time, all of these things, the value of something. Does this relate. Does this matter? Who is this person? Am I that person? Is any part of me left still remaining in that bed? My spirit, my soul? Where is the energy from the person who created that? The person who survived this bed? Have they gone and come back again? All of these questions or whatever. And that's what I was thinking as I was doing it and it was really, really sad. I feel like crying now. It was really strange. I would have liked it to have been a bit more rumpy pumpy, this one, but it's not at all. It's like. It's like that's where someone nearly died. So. And yeah, and I suppose that's. That's part of the problem with it because I think also when you've been really nihilistic in your life, when you've been younger and then you feel sort of for. Want a better. Yeah. Second life, you've been given a second chance. Maybe I felt remorseful as well about the indulgence of how I lived and what I did and how I. But I was for everyone. You know, like alcoholics don't want to be alcoholics, you know, drug abusers don't want to be drug addicts. It goes on and on and on. People don't choose to be that way. They became that way. And it's really hard to put the brakes on and say, right now I'm gonna stop and now I'm gonna treat my life differently. Now I'm gonna have more respect for me now I'm gonna clean this up, do that. Now I'm gonna survive, now I'm gonna go forward. People say to me, what would you say to your younger self of those kind of questions? And I said, the main thing I'd say is that everything's gon. Because if you know it's going to be all right, if you just knew you'd have the power and the strength to feel that you can continue. But lots of people aren't given that confidence, they're not given that power. When people ask me about my stuff when I was younger and how I felt when I was a child and everything before I never made reference to enough. I don't think was living in poverty. Being a child and being poor and living in poverty affects you for the rest of your life, however you deal with it.

[Emma Barnett]

What's it done to you, do you think?

[Tracey Emin]

I think with me, I think my mum. My mum about this. About 20 years ago, my mum said that I was Going up my own backside. And I think she was right in a way. I think. I think there was a certain point in my life where I tried to run away from everything that. Everything that made me, even though I was really open about it, or I think I wished it hadn't been like that. I wished everything had been better. I wished everything had been clearer and cleaner. I'm like, I've never been an A level student, right? I never did any A levels. No one helped me with my homework, no one read stories to me. You know, the list is endless. Because this is what happens when you grow up in poverty or poor background. The person looking after you, in my case, single parent mom, does not have time when she's finished work to come and read your story. Another big thing, you don't have a washing machine. The washing's done in the bath, your socks are grey, your shirt is great. Things shrink. You're going to be the person at school that's like slightly scuzzy. Being on that other side has a bad effect on you. It does. And with me, luckily, again, I am very lucky. I had art. I had art and I had creativity and that just pulled me through. Pulled me through, pulled me through.

[Emma Barnett]

I think also the fact that you've just been so moved and it makes so much sense and thank you for explaining it about the bed this time, about what it's brought up and everything, but also feeling so rubbish earlier in your life and yet you've gone through what you've been through with cancer and now you've got an exhibition called A Second Life. It seems like coming that close to death, you seem to have learned a great deal from that experience and taken a great deal from that.

[Tracey Emin]

Yeah, it's really funny. It's sort of like a falcy and pact. Like if someone had said to me six years ago or seven years ago, well, Tracy, you're going to lose your bladder, you're going to lose this, you're going to lose that, you're going to have a sort of hidden disability, blah, blah, blah. But you're going to go back to market, you're going to be really happy. It's going to be like Shanghai, it's going to be like heaven. You're going to paint in the morning and swim in the sea, in the sunset in the afternoon. Would I have exchanged my bladder? I don't know. I doubt it. But the point is, I got a pretty good return. It was amazing because when I was told that I was gonna be dead by Christmas, I thought, oh dear, and I said, death looks after itself. And what I'm gonna do now is just focus on living, which I'd never done before in my life. Ever. Ever.

[Emma Barnett]

Thank you for listening to the interview. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can find many more episodes of the Interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including ones with the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern and Dame Sarah Mulally, the first woman to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. Until the next time. Bye for now.

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[Tracey Emin]

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