*Normani is speaking out about pausing her music career after both her parents were diagnosed with cancer.
Today reported previously that the singer was age 5 when her mother, Andrea Hamilton, was first diagnosed with breast cancer. After being disease-free for 19 years, the cancer returned in 2020.
“I was in Los Angeles when I found out my mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer again. My family was back in Houston. Three weeks earlier, when I was visiting my mom at home, she’d fallen into my arms, expressing how scared she was,” Normani wrote in a 2022 op-ed for Elle magazine.
“She had a gut feeling about the results. I felt incredibly helpless because I wasn’t able to cure her,” she added.
Normani’s father, Derrick, was diagnosed with cancer a year after her mother’s cancer returned. Normani was preparing to drop her debut album last year but was ready to step back from her music career to care for her parents.
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“F— all of this. This is bigger than the music,” the singer recalled during a recent interview with Who What Wear. “It’s bigger than what I’m trying to accomplish. This is life or death. All I wanted to do was be there for them.”
Normani said her music “got them through the cancer treatments.”
“Honestly, music got them through the cancer treatments. I remember being on FaceTime with my mom while she was undergoing chemo and her asking me, ‘How’s the studio today? How’s the music coming?’” she said.
“As hard as it was for me to not be with them as much as I wanted to, ultimately, pushing through made the circumstances of the last few years feel a bit lighter for my parents,” Normani recalled.
She added, “It was in those moments with my parents that made me realize that I have an opportunity to make an impact in this lifetime. I know everything I’ve been through isn’t in vain. There’s always something that God wants me to see in the season. It’s all in service of making me better for all that he actually has in store for me.”
Normani said her debut solo album, “Dopamine,” is “a representation of everything I’ve gone through to get to this moment.”
READ MORE: Normani Slammed for Appearing in Chris Brown’s New Music Video
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