Lady A‘s Charles Kelley is sharing some heartbreaking news. The singer reveals that he has been diagnosed with cancer.
“I had these random rib fractures that happened, which sparked my doctor into having me do several different blood tests,” Kelley shares on social media, with his wife, Cassie, by his side. “One of the last blood tests we did, they found a blood cancer in there called multiple myeloma. It’s rare. But I’m young, I feel healthy, and the treatments, I will say, have just come so far, even in the past five years, that even the life expectancy far exceeds what it used to be.”
Kelley goes on to say that he feels “really hopeful,” in spite of the scary diagnosis.
“We have a friend going through this right now, and she’s been sharing some of her journey,” the father of two says. “She’s about two months ahead of me on this. It helped me so much, watching that. I think in the same spirit of the way we’ve kind of shared a lot of my sobriety journey, just getting this stuff off your chest is so freeing, and it takes the power away from it a little bit. We wanted to let you all know what was going on, and we’re gonna get through it. I think in sobriety, it’s all about one day at a time, and that we’re not in control, so that’s the way we’re looking at it.”
Charles Kelley Reveals His Plans With Lady A Amid Cancer Diagnosis
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Kelley might be battling cancer, but he isn’t about to let that keep him away from his job with Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood as part of Lady A.
“Right now, I feel great,” Kelley says. “We’ve got a new record coming out soon with Lady A, and then we’ve got Christmas shows. The first six months of treatment, I believe, is not gonna be too super invasive. I can still work. … I want to keep working. Even going out last weekend, after learning the news, it was like, ‘This is where I belong.’ I need to be happy and doing what I love to do, and spending and soaking up as much time with my family as I can as well.
“But I’m hopeful,” he adds. “I really am. We just wanted to let you all know. And I’ll try to let you in when I feel like it’s appropriate throughout the journey, and it’s just another hurdle, and I feel confident that we’re going to get through it.”
Charles Kelley’s Sobriety Journey
Kelley went to rehab in 2022, after he went out drinking in Greece, leaving his phone off — and Cassie frantic when she couldn’t reach him.
“The next morning, I said, ‘You need help. You have to deal with this,’” Cassie recalls on CBS This Morning. “And he said he knew, and he made a plan with his manager, and he flew directly from Greece to treatment. But at that point, I thought I was fully flying back to the US, and I was going to meet with a divorce attorney. That was it.”
Now, Kelley is so grateful that he gave up alcohol, for good.
“I always considered myself a good parent. But I definitely would come home a buzzed parent from the golf course. Just having more energy to be with him, too, and I think that’s the biggest thing,” Kelley previously said on the Raising Boys and Girls podcast, speaking of his oldest son, Ward. “Wake up in the morning, and now I’m the one getting him ready, and take him to school most mornings. … In my drinking days, if I had been up drinking all night, that would have been a hard, or an argument, or some sort of point of contention.
“And so I think it’s taken that extra layer — we still like any married couple, we have our little moments,” he adds. “But I’ve calmed down so much more. I’m so much more of a chill guy in general.”