Premiering today, November 6th, on Netflix is Country Ever After, a new series that follows the lives of independent country singer Coffey Anderson, his hip-hop dancer wife Criscilla and their three beautiful kiddos. The couple gained traction online with their city vs. country parenting tactics and relatable storyline, and now fans and more can see their love story play out on television! Early in the series, viewers find out about Criscilla’s stage 3 colon cancer as she endures her final round of chemotherapy. Unfortunately, the couple revealed her cancer progressed to stage 4 in November 2019.
“She is in immunotherapy right now, so it is a trial and we are trying to figure out if that’s the best way for her to go right now. She is very optimistic about this treatment. We’ve only done one infusion with it and it’s a learning process,” Coffey told HollywoodLife.com in an EXCLUSIVE interview. “The journey that people are realizing with this type of sickness is that it’s up and down. In three months, months you’ll have low tumor markers in your blood, and then 90 days they may be up. So is it something in your diet? Is it something that you can do? Is it environmental? This is the worst roller coaster that I would never wish on an enemy.”
Criscilla was first diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer after showing symptoms in May 2018. Following a brief remission, she revealed in an interview with People in November 2019 that the cancer returned as stage 4 and was spreading. “The cancer has spread throughout my para-aortic region and has begun growing up my back,” Criscilla explained. “My ultimate goal is to be in remission and have it not be chronic but be in a situation where it can be completely healed. The ideal, if that cannot happen, would be to keep it maintained and have it not spread any further for the rest of my life.”
The “Mr. Red White & Blue” crooner revealed that one of the hardest things for him to adjust to was allowing the cameras to document Criscilla on her tougher days. “One of the first days that they came, Criscilla had a really tough day when it came to chemo, and chemo wipes her out for about seven days. I said ‘Y’all gotta go get out, and so respectfully and so quietly, in two minutes, they were gone,” Coffey explained. “Criscilla opened up her eyes, so tired, so dehydrated, so worn down, and she said, ‘You gotta let them film it. They need all of it. They’ve got to see it.”
Coffey added that the raw footage of Criscilla’s battle with cancer will “help another caregiver if their life partner, or their husband or wife is going through this.” “How they can learn from what I learned from watching my dad, when my mother was battling cancer, I learned all those things of how to take care of her from watching him. I had to let them get the ugly too,” he said.
Tune in to Country Ever After, available to binge watch now on Netflix.