Taylor Swift revealed recently that her mother, Andrea Swift, has been diagnosed with a brain tumor.
The 30-year-old singer shared the news in her Variety cover story, in which she talks about her upcoming Netflix documentary titled Miss Americana (which will debut at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23 and then premiere on Netflix at the end of January) and about her mother’s health.
Andrea had been recently diagnosed with a brain tumor while undergoing treatment for cancer. Andrea’s cancer had returned for a second time while the singer’s documentary was being filmed, Swift shared last March.
“Everyone loves their mom; everyone’s got an important mom,” Swift told the magazine. “But for me, she’s really the guiding force. Almost every decision I make, I talk to her about it first. So obviously it was a really big deal to ever speak about her illness.”
“She was going through chemo, and that’s a hard enough thing for a person to go through,” she said at the time.
“While she was going through treatment, they found a brain tumor,” Swift continued. “And the symptoms of what a person goes through when they have a brain tumor is nothing like what we’ve ever been through with her cancer before. So it’s just been a really hard time for us as a family.”
In the interview, the singer opened up about her relatively short touring schedule this year following the release of her latest album Lover. Swift went on to explain that her mother was “the reason” she wanted to spend less time on tour.
“I mean, we don’t know what is going to happen,” she said. “We don’t know what treatment we’re going to choose. It just was the decision to make at the time, for right now, for what’s going on.”
The singer also got candid about her mother’s diagnosis in a personal track on her Lover album titled “Soon You’ll Get Better.”
“And I hate to make this all about me / But who am I supposed to talk to? / What am I supposed to do? / If there’s no you,” Swift sings.
“That was really, really hard to write, and it was just a family decision whether to even put it on the album,” she said during a YouTube Live ahead of Lovers release. “We as a family decided to put this on the album, and it’s something I’m so proud of, but it’s just really hard. I can’t sing it. It’s hard to just emotionally deal with that song.”
Just four years after revealing to the world her mom was diagnosed with cancer, Swift wrote in a personal essay for Elle last year, that her mother was once again facing it.
“I’ve had to learn how to handle serious illness in my family. Both of my parents have had cancer, and my mom is now fighting her battle with it again,” she penned.
“It’s taught me that there are real problems and then there’s everything else,” she continued. “My mom’s cancer is a real problem. I used to be so anxious about daily ups and downs. I give all of my worry, stress, and prayers to real problems now.”