Taylor Swift has revealed that her mother Andrea has been diagnosed with a brain tumour after previously being treated for cancer.
In an emotional interview with Variety ahead of her new documentary Miss Americana, the singer, 30, revealed that while her mum, 62, was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer last year, the doctors discovered the tumour.
"While she was going through treatment, they found a brain tumour," Taylor told the publication.
"And the symptoms of what a person goes through when they have a brain tumour 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."
Andrea was first diagnosed with cancer in 2015. After treatment, she went into remission but the disease came back last year.
And though the family has previously kept private about the matter, Taylor explained how “hard” this new turn has been for them.
“[Cancer] is a hard enough thing for a person to go through,” she said.
Taylor also revealed how she has cut short her traditionally yearlong tour to support her mother through her diagnosis.
“I mean, we don't know what is going to happen. 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,” she said.
The 30-year-old star said it was a big decision to speak about her mum's illness, telling the magazine: "Everyone loves their mom; everyone's got an important mom. 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."
Taylor has been using her music to deal with family hardship. Her new album Lover features the track Soon You'll Get Better, a touching tribute to her mum.
In the song, she sings lyrics like 'I didn’t tell you I was scared,' while also explaining how her mother was making 'the best of a bad deal.'
She opened up about how difficult it was to write that track during a YouTube Live event back in August.
'That was really, really hard to write, and it was also just a family decision whether to even put it on the album,' she said. 'I think songs that are really hard for you to write emotionally, maybe they're really hard to write and hard to sing because they're really true.'
Miss Americana will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23 and will be released on Netflix on January 31.
