After a battle with non-hodkins lymphoma – and successfully battling it – 24-year-old Tessa James is getting back into her career.

In her latest stunning photo shoot for online magazine Gritty Pretty‘s Summer 2016 issue, she tells the magazine, ‘I feel beautiful, which I haven’t felt in a really long time and I definitely feel more confident in my skin than ever before’.

‘I didn’t worry about what I looked like because everyone knew I wasn’t well. What can you do about it? I was actually ok with being bald and felt silly in a wig, it just didn’t feel right,’ she says.

After leaving Home and Away in 2011, Tessa headed to LA to pursue career opportunities over there. However, her dreams were cut short when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma in September 2014, and returned to the Gold Coast to undergo chemotherapy.

Now in remission, she is looking forward by heading back to LA where her and husband Nate Myles have just bought a house.