‘Giddy’ for Diddy. Modesto teen, other young cancer survivors are surprised on ‘Ellen’
Making a dance video to the Diddy song “Bad Boys for Life” was fun.
Posting it on Facebook to raise awareness of childhood cancer was important.
Having the video shared by the hip-hop and fashion superstar himself, on Instagram, was exciting.
Ellen DeGeneres seeing the post and inviting some of the young dancers on her show last week was “amazing,” said one of them, 18-year-old Baylie Hankins of Modesto.
And having the mogul come out from the wings to join the talk-show host and her guests on stage left her “giddy,” said Hankins, seemingly dropping the hip-hop-worthy giddy/Diddy rhyme spontaneously.
Hankins, a Beyer High grad now attending Modesto Junior College and Stanislaus State University, battled a type of cancer called Hodgkin lymphoma. She and her mother, fellow cancer survivor Season Newell, belong to the nonprofit FAM: Fighting All Monsters, whose mission is to support families with children facing life-threatening challenges.
“Bad Boys For Life,” with its line “I survived what I been through” and a chorus that includes “we ain’t goin’ nowhere, we can’t be stopped now,” is FAM’s unofficial theme song, Hankins said by phone Tuesday while sitting in an auto shop as her tire was repaired. A FAM mother threw out the idea in an online discussion of making a dance video to the song as a surprise for the organization’s founder, Milk Tyson, said Hankins.
During taping of the show last Wednesday, the Modestan told DeGeneres that “to help shed light on the dark world that is childhood cancer,” Tyson thought that “by making this video, by getting Diddy’s attention, that we would get our point across that childhood cancer matters. And it worked.”
Hankins was among the many FAM members who put their dance moves on video. But when the clips were submitted to the video producers, she ended up on the virtual cutting-room floor. “Probably because I was super awkward,” she said good-naturedly.
But the producer of “Ellen” requested all the dance videos that had been submitted, and she Facetimed every single participant, Hankins said. Based on their attitudes and how they answered questions, eight were chosen to appear on the show, which aired Thursday.
Two weeks after the Facetime talk, Hankins got a call Saturday, Feb. 15, to be on a plane to L.A. the next day. She and her mom drove to Los Angeles, though, because having just completed her cancer treatment, she’s not yet been cleared to fly.
“It felt so surreal” to be on the set, she remembered, and being on the show “was insane.”
As DeGeneres talked with the cancer survivors, she said how sorry Diddy was that he couldn’t be present because he was touring. She then played a video message from him in which he said, “I promise that we’re going to be dancing together one day soon.”
“I was so sad when she said he was in Miami and she played the video. It wasn’t disappointment, but it would have been so awesome to have him there,” she recalled thinking.
But when DeGeneres then asked her crew, “What is the date today?” and feigned confusion about having some dates wrong, Hankins said she suspected something was up. “I was so giddy and couldn’t sit still,” she said, and in the video clip, she keeps looking around. “I was wondering where he would come out” if he was there.
And sure enough, he was.
In another nice surprise, DeGeneres presented the youth with a $25,000 check from Shutterfly to support FAM.
Putting aside being starstruck, Hankins said having the FAM members on “Ellen” meant “4.9 million people saw that these kids have cancer. Getting that word out is amazing.”
As for herself, Hankins said that having finished treatment for Hodgkin lymphoma, which attacks the white blood cells and the body’s immune system, she’s gone back to school to study nursing.
In February 2018, the then-junior at Beyer was treated to a memorable day by local law enforcement personnel as she battled her cancer. Hankins’ long desire was a career as a police officer, specifically a K-9 handler, and her special day included a flight on a Sheriff’s Department helicopter and the chance to meet more than two dozen police dogs.
“Prior to cancer, being a K-9 officer was my dream,” she said Tuesday. But she learned how physically demanding police work is, “and especially after my treatment — no way.”
Being a cancer patient, with a compromised immune system, was a lonely time, she said. So post-cancer, her dream has changed. It’s now to become one of those nurses “who made my time less terrible.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
