Cat Janice, a musician battling cancer who went viral on social media after revealing that all proceeds from her song, “Dance You Outta My Head,” would go to her 7-year-old son, died Wednesday. She was 31.
The singer-songwriter, who released the song from hospice, died at her family home in Alexandria, Virginia, The New York Times reported. The cause of death was sarcoma, her brother, William Ipsan, told the newspaper.
Her death was announced by her family on her official Instagram account, according to People.
“This morning, from her childhood home and surrounded by her loving family, Catherine peacefully entered the light and love of her heavenly creator,” the post noted. “We are eternally thankful for the outpouring of love that Catherine and our family have received over the past few months.”
“Cat saw her music go places she never expected and rests in the peace of knowing that she will continue to provide for her son through her music. This would not have been possible without all of you.”
New music will be released posthumously, according to Billboard.
The singer and instrumentalist, whose legal name was Catherine Janice Ipsan, had been writing songs since she was a teenager. Her bouncy, disco-influenced tune and catchy lyrics in “Dance You Outta My Head” reflected her sentiment about “dancing on the edge of disaster,” the Times reported.
She released the song on Jan. 19, a few days after entering hospice, according to the newspaper. The music caught fire on TikTok earlier this year, especially after she said that proceeds from the song and any merchandise sold would go to her son, Loren, Billboard reported.
Cat Janice’s first brush with cancer came in November 2021 after she felt a lump in her neck, according to People In March 2022 she realized the lump was still there, noting on TikTok that it “was larger and it was very hard.”
The singer was diagnosed with sarcoma, a rare cancer that develops in the bones of soft tissues of patients, according to the Johns Hopkins Medicine website. According to the National Cancer Institute, about 12,000 cases of soft tissue sarcomas and 3,000 cases of bone sarcomas are diagnosed in the U.S. annually.
Cat Janice had surgery, underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments before she was declared cancer-free on July 22, 2022, People reported.
Earlier this year, Janice went back on social media to announce that her cancer had returned, according to the magazine. She then dedicated the proceeds from “Dance You Outta My Had” to Loren, according to the Times.
TikTok rallied around Cat Janice, a singer who revealed during her cancer treatment that she had transferred the rights to her final song to her 7-year-old son, Loren, positioning the song as a gift to her son in perpetuity. She died on Wednesday at 31. https://t.co/sFiNFtm9v2
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 29, 2024
“I am leaving this song behind for my son,” she wrote on TikTok. In another post, she announced that she had “changed all the rights from my songs so every presave and every stream goes to Loren.”
The song has been used in more than two million TikTok videos, according to the Times. It became her first song to crack into the Billboard charts.
“I’m praying my story isn’t over yet,” the singer wrote in a post on Jan. 20, her 31st birthday. “But if it is, this is a pretty incredible way to say goodbye.”
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