Jo Dee Messina Gets Vulnerable About Past Battle With Cancer During Candid Conversation with Ella Langley at CRS

Even the strongest women have moments of doubt and fear, something that Ella Langley and Jo Dee Messina proved during their candid conversation at this year’s Country Radio Seminar (CRS). For Messina, one of her most vulnerable moments came in 2017, when she was a single mom battling cancer, longing for someone to hold her through the uncertainty.

“People are like, ‘Oh, you’re a strong woman. You’re such a strong woman.’ And I was like, ‘That doesn’t mean that mean I don’t want to be taken care of,” she told the crowd sitting quietly in the transformed ballroom space.

She went on to describe the nights she would sit on the edge of her bed, overwhelmed by loneliness the distress of going through something so difficult and wishing for someone to share the burden with. Instead, she had to dig deep, push her fears aside and be strong for her young kids.

“People were like, ‘You’re just so strong going through this.’ And I was like, I would cry and be like, ‘Jesus, I wish you had arms. I just want somebody to hold me because this is scary and lonely.’ Then people are like, ‘You’re so strong’ and I’m like, ‘You didn’t see me last night.’ I was sitting on the side of my bed going, ‘I wish somebody would go through this with me,’” she shared honestly.

This experience proves that even though from the outside, Messina might have looked tough, putting on that strong front was just her way of coping, a survival instinct born from that hardship.

“I think sometimes it’s like having to push through, people see it as, ‘oh, you want to push through and you want to push everybody away.’ And it’s like, no, actually this is a survival thing. This is how I survive,” she added.

Ella Langley said she can relate to having a “tough” image, as she is often seen that way despite facing her own struggles behind the fame and success that many assume would bring only happiness. That simply is not always the reality of life in the spotlight.  

“It was kind of the same thing when I moved to town. When I would come to these writes and they had an idea of who I was and wanted to write it that way and I was like, ‘Well don’t you think about stuff that way,’” she recalled. “I guess my toughness comes from more life type of things and…I don’t view myself as that way all the time. I kind of view myself as pretty goofy and weird. So it’s odd. I think so many people share their opinion about what they think of you. You’re like, ‘What? I got to work on my face,” Langley added, earning a few laughs.

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She later went on to open up about her longtime mental health battles that reached an all-time low last year, forcing her to take a step back from the road for a few weeks. Both women have found different ways to cope with the hardship and a large part of that is leaning into their faith to find that true strength.

The “You Look Like You Love Me” singer noted that she is “grateful” for the journey that her faith has led her down because it has made her the person she is today.

“Last year, every day I started to read my Bible. I pulled my Bible out, had dust all over it. I had looked for it for two days and every day I was just in the word and I’m still doing that and I’m still growing it. And that’s the thing, I think with all these questions like, ‘How are you getting through this?’ It’s that. It is truly that. That is the thing that saved my life last year,” she admitted.

Once she realized that she was put here for a reason, Langley felt confident that even though there have been high highs and low lows, she is exactly where she is supposed to be in life and it’s all because she listened to that calling from above.

Messina also leaned on her faith through difficult times.