STILL FIGHTING

'The Quiet Courage of Becoming Herself'
Exclusive Interview with Caly Bevier
Featured in AwareNow Conversations
Hosted by Allié McGuire

​Caly Bevier’s story has been told in bright lights, standing ovations, and one unforgettable Golden Buzzer moment. But here, the story softens into something more intimate, the kind of truth found after the cameras turn off and the healing gets quiet. In this deeply personal conversation, Caly speaks about the childhood that formed her, the diagnosis that changed her, the music that carried her, and the self she is still courageously discovering.

CALY: I’m from a really small town in Ohio called Grand Rapids. I was 16-years-old when I first went on America’s Got Talent with my dream to win it as a singer.

I’ve always been fighting for my place in the industry, and over the past eight years, it’s had its ups and downs. Some years, I’ve put a lot of work in. Other years, I’ve needed to take a step back and focus on finding myself, because that’s been a big part of my journey too.

I feel like I went from sports and high school and regular life stuff, to cancer, to being on TV, to everyone saying, “You’re going to be a singer now.” Then I came to L.A. and tried to figure that out. And now I’m at a place where I’m asking, “Okay, who am I? For real?”

​ALLIÉ: I just have to say, I feel really fortunate for knowing you the way that I do. I feel like so many people know one part of you, but they don’t know so much of you. If you were taking someone back through the wayback machine of Caly, what would that story sound like?

CALY: How much time do we have?

ALLIÉ: Well, we both grew up in small towns, right?

CALY: Definitely. I came from a small town, but we were always moving. My parents were young when they had me, so they were figuring out life with me and my sister as kids. We were all kind of figuring it out together.

I loved to dance and sing with my mom. We were very theatrical and fun, and I had a fun childhood. I loved it.

​ALLIÉ: Before we get to the cancer, I want to pause there, because sometimes we get known for our diagnosis. But our diagnosis doesn’t define us, right?

So before the diagnosis, before cancer, what was the Caly story? Small town, dancing, loving life. I love how you said your parents were figuring it out.

CALY: Yeah. They were young when they had me, about 20 and 21, so I definitely feel like I kind of grew up with them. They did the best they could. Part of that meant constantly moving around. It was like, “We can’t afford rent here,” or, “I got a job on the other side of town,” so I was just along for the ride. But it made me appreciate moving and new places. Even having to change schools and leave friends wasn’t something that felt depressing or sad to me. I didn’t get too upset about it. It was more like, “I’m excited for the next step in our adventure.”

I think that was because of how my parents raised me to look at life. They raised me to be excited about things. But there was also the flip side. I grew up very religious and very fearful of the world at the same time. So there was this juxtaposition of really loving life, while also being afraid of what could happen if I did things the wrong way.

By the time I was 11, my mom decided she didn’t want to be part of that religion anymore. She pulled us out, and I was finally able to experience life on a completely different level.

Growing up in that religion, we couldn’t celebrate holidays. Everything was centered around the idea that God was constantly listening to every little thing you did. You couldn’t really explore yourself very much.

Once we left, I was able to celebrate Christmas. We were able to start new traditions, which was really cool. I had this whole new love and zest for life. It was hard, though, because when we left the religion, some of my family members, including my grandparents, were still in it. Their belief was that if you leave the religion, they’re not supposed to have a close relationship with you anymore because you’ve severed your relationship with their God.

As a preteen going into my teen years, I was trying to understand that. I kept wondering, “Why can’t we all just come together and get along and love each other for our differences and for all the things we still have in common? Why does this one thing have to discount everything else?” I think that was the first major turning point in my life. My first canon event was leaving that religion and starting a new life.

Going into my teen years, I was finally able to be part of extracurricular activities. Before that, we weren’t allowed to be involved in after-school activities or hang out with kids who weren’t in our religion. They were called “worldly kids.”

CALY: So finally, I joined after-school sports. I did softball and volleyball, and then I grew to love cheerleading. Cheerleading became my whole life. I always wanted to be tumbling on the mats. We were in the gym all the time. I started getting fit. I started getting abs.

At one point, I could feel what I thought was a really hard ab in my stomach. It started to protrude, but in my mind, I thought it was just an ab. I wasn’t in pain. Nothing felt that weird. It was just this protruding lump in my stomach, and I didn’t really think much of it. But then I started getting kind of sick. I had to pee all the time, which was random.

Eventually, my family and I went to Orlando, Florida, for vacation. It was really fun, but I got heat sickness at Disney World. I couldn’t keep fluids down. I was just so sick. Then we drove all the way back to Ohio, and because I constantly had to pee, my dad was like, “No water for you. Don’t think about water.” So when we got home, I was dehydrated to the point that I had to go to the hospital.

They admitted me because I was dehydrated. I got fluids, and everything seemed okay. But then I went to my pediatrician, and she gave me a checkup. She had me pee in a cup, which I thought was normal because I had done it before. But I guess she was giving me a pregnancy test because of the symptoms I was describing and because I had this protruding lump in my stomach.

She came back into the room. It was me and my dad, and she said, “So, you’re pregnant.”

I was like, “What? I’m not pregnant. I don’t even like holding boys’ hands. I don’t like saying the word sex.” It made me uncomfortable to even think about that. I was like, “Girl, I’m not.”

Then she said, “Well, the only other thing it could be is a cyst or a tumor on your ovaries.”

So I had surgery. They removed the tumor. It was about the size of a little toy football. They also removed my left fallopian tube and ovary. Then I had chemo.

During that time, “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten became my anthem. I listened to it a lot, and I knew it was a cancer anthem for so many people. I wanted to do a cover of it. I thought it would be a great song, not only for me, but maybe for the other kids in my unit too. I thought maybe they could watch it on YouTube and get some inspiration from it.

That was the first time I ever went to a recording studio. I recorded a cover of “Fight Song,” and it was good. One of the parents at the hospital saw the video. Her son, Thane, was in remission at the time, and he was having a benefit. She asked me to come and sing “Fight Song” there. So I went and sang for Thane. He has since passed away… but he was such a sweet, sweet boy. I’m just glad I got to sing for him.

The video my dad took that day ended up going viral. It’s so weird to say this, but sometimes it feels like survivor’s guilt. I sang this song, and then I experienced so many things with so many kids who have passed away. They’re not here anymore. I still see their parents on Facebook, and I’m always with them in that way, but their children aren’t here anymore. I never really think about this. I never talk about it. I’ve never said, “I have survivor’s guilt,” but I think I do.

​CALY: Anyway, the video went viral. I sang at Thane’s benefit. Then I was on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and I got to sing “Fight Song” with Rachel Platten. After that, I was on America’s Got Talent, and I sang “Fight Song” there. That was the anthem of that year. For those two years, everything was “Fight Song.”

I grew up watching Simon Cowell on American Idol and being so scared of him. I had no clue what he was going to think of this little Ohio girl.

ALLIÉ: But he liked you.

CALY: I guess he did.

ALLIÉ: Enough to give you a Golden Buzzer.

CALY: Yes. Then I moved immediately to Los Angeles and started my career writing music. When Rachel Platten wrote “Fight Song,” it was about her journey in the music industry. That’s still a song I hold close to my heart, and I always will. Now it’s not only my cancer journey song. It’s my music journey song too.

ALLIÉ: That’s really interesting that you say that because we do that, right? We use where we are in life at a particular moment and think, “This is who I am.” We define ourselves by that one thing instead of seeing ourselves as a full expression. It’s like with a diagnosis. Sometimes people feel like they are their diagnosis and little else. How do we become who we are when we’ve faced adversity? Some people go through something hard and feel done. But you’re like, “No, I’m going to keep going.”

CALY: I think going into the music industry after fighting cancer felt like, “Of course I’m going to do this. No question.”
But like I said, I think a lot of it came from the adults in my life saying, “You should do this.” Over the past couple of years, I’ve been asking myself, “Okay, I do make music, but what level do I want it to be in my life?”

I want to make music that is vulnerable. I want to make music people connect with. But at the end of the day, I want to make music that I connect with. For a long time, I went with other people’s opinions. People would say, “You should make music that sounds like this,” or, “You should have backup dancers when you go on stage,” or, “You should sell out Madison Square Garden.” There were so many “shoulds.” It took me a long time to ask myself, “What do I want to do? What do I want?”

ALLIÉ: So you’re at that moment in your life where you’re meeting yourself where you are.

CALY: Yeah. That’s where I feel like I am. Even now, I hadn’t picked up a fiction book since probably seventh grade, and now I’m just flying through books. I love fantasy. I love seeing these new worlds. Sometimes I want to escape reality, and that helps. Sometimes I’ll think, “Oh my God, I just spent six hours reading this book. I’m wasting all my time.” But no, it actually helps me romanticize the rest of life. It helps me write songs. It helps me creatively.

There are so many things I’m finding out about myself that I don’t think I would have discovered if I hadn’t taken that step back. Right now, I have a lot of anxiety. I’m depressed. I have things I need to figure out. But I would rather feel those feelings fully than ignore them and keep chugging through, hustling, and pretending everything is fine.

ALLIÉ: Yeah. I think that’s how we find our way. If we just pretend everything is fine and keep going the same route, we never really meet ourselves. To your point, sometimes we do need to stop. We need to pause. Whether it’s part of a mental health journey, a diagnosis, or something else entirely, we have to give ourselves grace and space. We have to be able to meet ourselves where we are. We don’t have to be at any other place or point in time. We can just be right here.

CALY: You have to be there for yourself. Other people may count on you, but in order to be there for them, you have to be there for yourself. You have to love yourself too. ∎

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Find & follow Calysta on Instagram: @calybev