Nivea Reveals Leukemia Diagnosis at 44

R&B icon Nivea is battling leukemia at age 44.

behind hit tracks Don’t Mess With My Man and Laundromat announced the diagnosis during a recent episode of The Cadillac Chronicles and is now undergoing treatment. 

Yet Nivea struck an optimistic tone as she described inspired her to pursue opportunities she had put on the back burner - such as education and returning to music.

'I was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this year,' she said.

'I'm so grateful to God. [I've] been going through treatment and everything is going great so far, and I expect it to continue. Amen, amen, amen!

'Very grateful for life, you know. It's so cliche to say, you know, you don't know the time nor the hour, but it's true, and it just helped me put a lot of things in perspective.

'I live in gratitude like religiously, and I'm just grateful for everything, like I'm doing things I wanna do, I'm definitely back into my music, and I'm going to school for audio engineering.

'I've always wanted to learn how to engineer and mixing engineer in particular, but in general, just doing all the things, honey, loving on my children, and just being grateful and taking every opportunity that comes my way.'

Nivea, pictured 2025, said the diagnosis inspired her to pursue an education and return to music