Rita Ora broke down in tears as she recounted her mum's battle with cancer on The Voice Australia.
The 31-year-old singer is a judge on the Australian version of the talent show, and she was particularly moved by hopeful Aleisha Gam's family story, as the young woman revealed her mum had been struggling with cancer for the last two years.
Rita explained how her mum Vera had battled cancer too, as she teared up at the memories of the tough times her and her family went through. Explaining how she found it "really hard" during her mum's health battle, Rita wiped away her tears.
"I know how it feels to sort of have that connection with a song, and then that memory always sticks with that song. My mum, she also had cancer," she opened up on the show, as she praised Aleisha's performance.
"When she would go and get her treatment, and she was losing her hair and stuff, we were kind of teenagers. It was really weird to see your mum, like, not be the superhero that you always think your mum is going to be."
Rita said she was struggling to speak about it all.
She added: "Because you never think your parents are going to sort of, like, break down in front of you, you know what I mean? And then you have to sort of put them together. I can't even speak. It's also something she talks about.
"She's a survivor, but she had it super young, and I think it's so important to have that memory with them. I just wanted to put that out there. I don't really talk about my mum like that. It's really hard."
Vera was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 and had a mastectomy.
"I see these things saying check yourself for lumps but my mother didn’t have a lump she had a sharp pain, and she still went and got checked," Rita explained, "I have done the BRCA test and the gene test myself and, luckily, I don’t have the gene. But I still check myself regularly. Genetically, there was no history of breast cancer in my family before my mother, but she still got it."
