SINGAPORE: The floor is packed with diners at the Bussorah Street outlet of Hai Ge Ji, the halal Hainanese chicken rice restaurant founded by local celebrity couple Sheikh Haikel and Anna Belle Francis.<\/p>\n
It is almost noon on Sept 5 and less than 24 hours after the rapper-foodpreneur went viral with a Sept 4 Instagram video disclosing his year-long battle with stage 4 colon cancer, which had spread to his liver.<\/p>\n
Yet, here he is, greeting customers with his trademark warmth and geniality.<\/p>\n
Beneath this front of positivity, however, is a gruelling emotional and physical reality.<\/p>\n
In an interview with The Straits Times before Hai Ge Ji\u2019s 11am opening time, Haikel says that he is wrestling with pain, fatigue and the haunting knowledge that he is living on borrowed time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m scared, bro, I\u2019m scared,\u201d the 50-year-old admits, yet also adds that he refuses to hide at home.<\/p>\n
His coping mechanism is the signature humour that many fans might remember from his breakout role as a national service recruit in 1996 local comedy film Army Daze.<\/p>\n
Recounting how he received his cancer diagnosis in September 2025, he says: \u201cI asked the doctor, \u2018Doctor, what is after stage 4?\u2019 And the doctor goes, \u2018You die\u2019. I\u2019m like, oh, okay. Since it\u2019s like that, why does this thing only have four parts? It should have more parts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The public response to his disclosure has been an avalanche of love, prayers and well wishes from fellow celebrities, local politicians and his many fans. Friends from Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia are also flying in to see him.<\/p>\n
The sudden influx of people reaching out sparked a moment of panic as he turns to his wife, former actress-host Francis, 48, and asks: \u201cAm I really going to die like soon? Do you all know something that I don\u2019t know? Why is everybody suddenly rushing to see me?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her protective answer is an immediate and firm \u201cno\u201d. Still, the issue of mortality looms large. When asked about his greatest fear at this stage, he is unflinchingly honest, and broke down while saying: \u201cI don\u2019t want to die, not yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haikel first noticed internal rectal bleeding in late 2023, but convinced himself it was merely piles. When doctors urged him to undergo a colonoscopy, he refused.<\/p>\n
In 2024, he had a close brush with death. After wrapping up a commercial shoot, he collapsed in a carpark in front of Francis and their 12-year-old son Juz. The couple have two other children \u2013 Triqka, 23, and Abbra, 22.<\/p>\n
Paramedics rushed him to the hospital, his heart racing at 273 beats per minute. Doctors later told Francis that it could have been fatal, and that it was a miracle that he pulled through.<\/p>\n
In denial, he still refused the colonoscopy. Instead, he tried to manage with what he calls \u201cpositive vibes\u201d and an assortment of alternative treatments like tea and soda.<\/p>\n
He eventually agreed to the colonoscopy after he and Francis returned from umrah, the minor pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, in September 2025. The procedure took only three minutes, revealing a \u201cbunch of cauliflowers\u201d in his colon and confirming the urgent need to start conventional cancer treatment.<\/p>\n
Because the cancer went undiagnosed and untreated for so long, it had already progressed aggressively to stage 4, spreading to his liver. He says the specialist at the Singapore General Hospital told him: \u201cWe give you six months if you don\u2019t listen to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haikel agreed to chemotherapy and had four major abdominal operations to clear the primary tumour in the colon, nearly dying when an internal rupture caused massive post-surgery complications.<\/p>\n
The physical toll was drastic. He lost 100kg, half his body weight, in less than eight months. Ironically, it was his trademark corpulence that kept him alive when he lost his appetite after the operations, Francis notes.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s just put it this way, his excess weight saved him,\u201d she says. \u201cIf he didn\u2019t have anything to hold on to to lose, he would have disappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because Haikel was in and out of hospital, the couple overlooked the lease expiry on Hai Ge Ji\u2019s previous North Bridge Road location, which closed in June. Left with only a month to vacate, they had to go through a financially punishing S$200,000 (US$157,629) relocation to Bussorah Street, which opened in August.<\/p>\n
Haikel, however, holds no bitterness towards the former landlord who did not want to let them stay at their previous location. \u201cBusiness is business, man. It\u2019s not personal. I hold no grudges, but, yeah, it was hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple also have two other eateries, Hai Ge Ji Hainanese Beef Noodles in Yishun and Plaza Singapura.<\/p>\n
Unwavering support from family<\/p>\n
Throughout his medical ordeal, Haikel says his family remains his anchor. His marriage to Francis \u2013 the couple tied the knot in 2002 \u2013 is defined by an unbreakable bond.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t marry the person who will walk through the rainbow with you,\u201d Haikel says. \u201cYou marry the one that will go through hell with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their three children have been incredibly strong, they share. Juz, who will sit his Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) in end-September, has been trading cancer jokes with his dad.<\/p>\n
Haikel is also protective of his parents, both in their 70s. Blood tests confirm that the cancer is not hereditary. \u201cI didn\u2019t get it from my parents, and I will not give it to my children either,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
He has plans to go back to the one thing that first made him famous back in 1991 \u2013 music.<\/p>\n
That year, he hit the headlines when Construction Sight, his former duo with fellow rapper Ashidiq Ghazali, won Asia Bagus, a regional televised music competition by Japanese television station Fuji TV.<\/p>\n
Despite a 2021 announcement that he was retiring from music, Haikel wants to release another album, and is in talks to collaborate with fellow rappers such as Malaysian hip-hop heavyweight Joe Flizzow.<\/p>\n
He also wants to be at the Bussorah Street restaurant every day, to interact with his customers, fans, friends and acquaintances. \u201cI want to take a picture with everyone. I want to shake hands with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whenever he is too physically weak, he will sit in his car parked nearby. He will be undergoing more chemotherapy, with Francis saying he is going to try to push on for as long as he can.<\/p>\n
And rather than a fatalistic, morbid farewell, the hashtag #FINALAPPLAUSE that he included in his cancer reveal video is meant to signify him giving props to everyone who has supported him all these years, whether through his music or his food businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is me giving (my audience) the final applause. I want to clap for them. I want to say thank you,\u201d he says, getting emotional again.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of you, from the parents to the children to the next generation, they have allowed me to be me, to express myself, to be the best me possible. You allowed another human being to live.\u201d – The Straits Times\/ANN<\/p>\n
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