Ian West/PA WireA singer who was diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of 24 has performed with her band at the Royal Albert Hall to help raise money for the charity which supported her treatment.
Grace Kelly, who is now 26, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in 2022, and was treated at the Teenage Cancer Trust-funded unit at St James’s Hospital in Leeds.
She finished her treatment in March 2023 and on Wednesday she and her Leeds-based band VENUS GRRRLS supported James Arthur at the fundraising gig in the famous London venue in aid of the trust.
Grace has also featured in a film about her experiences with her partner Jack and best friend and bandmate Hannah, which was shown as part of the fundraising night.
Teenage Cancer TrustGrace, who was living in Watford at the time, said she first knew something was wrong when she noticed a rash that wouldn’t go away.
She went to the GP a number of times and was given antibiotics, but after a throat infection that left her struggling to breathe she was taken to A&E.
She said at first she thought her throat problems were a result of her singing with the band.
She was referred to the ear, nose and throat department at the local hospital and was given penicillin, and while the medicine made her feel better, days later she felt ill again and she went back to her GP where she was tested for glandular fever.
After that, Grace said her mum encouraged her to stay with her in Leeds “so she could look after me”.
“The day after I arrived, I got a call from the haematology team from St James’s University Hospital to say my white blood cells were five times higher than they should be.
“They said they needed to do more blood tests immediately and mentioned they may need to do a bone marrow biopsy. I thought, ‘oh, they think it might be leukaemia’.”
Grace said she went back to St James’s and “every test was more and more bleak”.
“My white blood cell counts kept rising. I had a bone marrow biopsy, and the results came back as abnormal.”
Teenage Cancer TrustFinally, in July 2022, Grace was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia.
She said hearing the news was “like an out of body experience”.
“My parents were in the waiting room and it killed me to tell them. I felt like I had let them down,” she said.
Grace underwent chemotherapy at the Teenage Cancer Trust-funded unit at St James’s University Hospital, where she stayed for nearly six weeks.
She said the experience was also difficult for her bandmates.
“Our second or third single came out in the midst of all of my tests, so it was a very strange time.
“We were a group of young girls who were pursuing our dream in music. Our song, Violet State of Mind, was played on Radio 1. So, it was a bittersweet time.
“As a band, you rely on each other, and you know that you need to show up and commit for it to work.
“I knew through no fault of my own that I wouldn’t be able to do that for a while. I worried they were going to move on without me.”
Ian West/PA WireTowards the end of her treatment, Grace started writing music again, and wrote the song Lidocaine from her hospital bed.
“The song is about my cancer journey, feeling trapped and not being able to do the things I wanted to,” she explained.
“I performed the song at our first gig when I was in remission and it was really cathartic and healing.
“I wished I could have gone back to the version of me after I’d been diagnosed and reassure her that it would be OK, because there was a time when I thought, ‘oh god, would I ever be able to do this again?’,” she said.
Since finishing her treatment in March 2023, Grace and her band have gone from strength to strength.
VENUS GRRRLS have just returned from performing at the SXSW festival in Texas and have released their latest single called Eighteen Crows.
Last year, the band played festivals including Reading and Leeds, Isle of Wight, Kendall Calling and Y Not.
The band’s performance suporting James Arthur at the Royal Albert Hall is one of a number of Teenage Cancer Trust gigs, which were founded in 2000 by The Who’s Roger Daltrey.
In the film shown at the gig, Grace paid tribute to Teenage Cancer Trust and all the staff at the charity’s unit in Leeds.
