emma cook tour

Rising Star Emma Kok’s Candid Journey With Chronic Illness

Kok raises awareness and inspires others

Key Takeaways

• Even before her gastroparesis diagnosis, Emma had to use feeding tubes without knowing the underlying cause of her inability to eat normally.
• She continues facing severe daily struggles with her illness, even feeling guilty for having down moments.
• Emma is inspiring others through her perseverance in such a debilitating chronic condition.

At just 16 years old, Dutch singer Emma Kok has achieved remarkable success, winning the 10th season of “The Voice Kids” in 2021.

However, her rise to fame has been underlined by a longtime battle with a rare chronic illness – gastroparesis .

View this post on Instagram A post shared by EMMA (@emmakokofficial)

For years, even prior to her gastroparesis diagnosis at age 11, Kok had to use feeding tubes without knowing the underlying cause.

“ 5 years ago I got diagnosed with gastroparesis. And all those years I had tube feeding but no diagnosis ,” she revealed in an August 2023 Instagram post.

Gastroparesis means her stomach is paralyzed , preventing her from eating normally.

“I can eat the tiniest bits just so that I can taste some stuff. But that’s also why I have tube feeding. I have two feeding pumps since I was a baby.”

After years of struggling largely out of the spotlight, Kok’s viral performance of “ Voila” with Andre Rieu in August 2023 prompted her to share her story publicly .

“ Because I went viral, I gained a lot of followers, so that’s why am gonna tell my story ,” she wrote.

Kok started the ‘ Gastrostars Foundation ‘ that month to raise awareness during Gastroparesis Awareness Month , lamenting,

“Because it’s a rare disease there’s also no attention to it. And I don’t think that’s fair.”

Even as her singing career took off, Kok continued facing daily challenges due to her illness.

In a February 2023 post, she called singing “ the only medicine that works for me .”

However, by May 2024, the struggles became particularly severe, with Kok admitting ,

“I’ll be honest with you. I am not feeling my best this last week. It has been hard. That’s not because of touring around the world and singing. I’ve been struggling with my illness a lot lately.”

She continues to struggle with the emotional toll, sharing,

“I felt guilty for feeling down, because I thought that I was not allowed to feel that way because of living my dream.”

Despite this, Kok finds motivation in her voice and dream, saying,

“I am so grateful that I am living my dream, it is the best medicine and therapy I could ask for.”

By sharing her experience of facing difficulties from a young age, Kok raises awareness and inspires others.

Her strength in overcoming adversity and achieving her goals despite a chronic illness is incredibly powerful.

In Case You Didn’t Know

• Emma Kok was born to parents Nathalie and Vico Kok .
• She has a brother named Enzo Kok , a violinist, and an older sister named Sophie .

Dear Emma: Hearing you sing Voila opened my heart to so many emotions. I like so many others cried while listening to your beautiful inspiring voice. Prayers for wellness are being prayed for you 💕🙏

I’m a 68 year old veteran living on Social Security but I haft to see you in concert ! If you’re not touring in the US then please let me know your touring schedule . You are an angel that I must see before I leave this earth 💖

Emma you have the voice of an ANGEL.. WHAT A SPECTACULAR PHENOMENONAL BRILLIANT MAGNIFICENT PERFORMANCE OF VOILA…GOD BLESS YOU!!!

Emma, my husband David Turner @elder_muzikman suffers with Gastroparesis and has been for 11 years. He is a musician and loves music. He also lost his sight due to diabetes 11 years ago. He has been in & out of the hospital monthly for almost 2years due to Gastroparesis flare-ups. When he is not in the hospital, he is encouraging and inspiring others who are battling with all types of diseases. Thank you for sharing your story. We live in Texas and are doing everything we can to bring awareness to Gastroparesis. We also started a nonprofit organization called By Faith Not Sight. We stand with you as you are bringing awareness to Gastroparesis. Be encouraged and keep doing what you are doing.

I discovered Emma from Voila, went back in time and followed her journey and videos as well as photo shares. Emma is absolutely outstanding as a singer and a human being. She is kind, caring, sense of humor, sharing her dreams and her illness. Her latest song Dancing on the stars was released by Andre as an official video and the introductions by Andre and Emma are beautiful.❤️❤️❤️

God bless you Emma. You are our new Adele. Keep your positive attitude it will lift you far above your illness. I listen to you over and over again. I hope you will tour the US. I will be there. I suffer from a chronic illness. I understand the ups and downs we go thru. Praying for you always.

I love this young lady’s voice and courage. At such a young age to have such a diagnosis would be a lot to overcome. Being joyful in the midst of trials is certainly the best medicine! I’m 73 and have chronic radiation enteritis which is a progressive illness caused by radiation treatments to my abdomen 28 years ago. I struggle daily with abdominal pain (sometimes severe) with vomiting as well as diarrhea. After 12 years my condition began to worsen and has been declining yearly. You are a hero to be going through such a terrible illness at such a young age and doing it with joy in your face. Your life shines with joy, although you may not be feeling it! Please continue to bless all of us with your beauty and your voice and hope!

Love you Emma. You are a shining star to everyone. Im 84 . You bring happiness to me.i watch you on you tube daily. You are strong and talented . Pleae keep up your performances and more songs. I live know ing I’ve seen a miracle in you,

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For pittsburgh theatre, emma cook: how family and dance have shaped her.

March 31, 2019

              When Emma Cook talks, two things are evident: she loves what she does, and what she does is dance. All of her stories are told passionately with a lot of details, and she moves while she talks, her hands fluidly punctuating her sentences. She’s a reporter’s dream with her attention to dates and details and good nature. She’s pretty, with a bouncy smile, long brown hair tied back in a ponytail, and blue eyes framed by black-rimmed glasses, three sparkling earrings in each ear. She’s friendly and easy to talk to with a quick wit.

              We meet in Rock‘n’ Joe Coffee Bar in downtown Pittsburgh right after her work at the Pittsburgh CLO ends. Despite having a full day of classes at Point Park University and then work, she’s upbeat and energetic. She’s spending her spring semester as one of the CLO’s Gene Kelly Award interns. (Kelly was a Pittsburgh native.) The Gene Kelly Awards are a high school musical theater awards program that feeds into the National High School Musical Theater Awards, also known as the Jimmy Awards. Cook’s job with the CLO and the Gene Kellys is to organize, confirm, and inform. She’s in and out of meetings and running to check on the schools participating in the awards.

              “We coordinate all of the schools’ and judges’ schedules. This year we have the most of both that we’ve ever had. We have 33 participating schools and 42 judges. Each school has to be seen four times by judges in their budget category. We just finished finalizing budget categories, and we’re working to make sure that the schools are social media networking, to make sure that someone within the school is promoting the shows. We also have the Kellys Critic Award and we have meetings with that, so we basically do a lot of emails and school visits. I’m still wrapping my head around it. We’re in our fifth week right now, and I have to admit that it’s a lot.”

              Cook’s internship with the CLO serves two purposes: to give her practical experience that she desires and to fulfill her required internship for graduation. She is a Dance and Sports, Arts, and Entertainment Management double major graduating with the dual degree in just three years from Point Park this April. The plan after graduation is to move to New York City and audition, audition, audition. With a determined expression, she repeats, “I want to dance. I want to perform.” Ever pragmatic, she adds that she knows that it’s difficult to make a living as a performer and she’d love to have a job related to the arts industry while she auditions.

              Cook was born in North Carolina and moved to northern Virginia when she was three. She grew up in Lorton, Virginia, one of four kids. “It’s funny,” she says. “The story we tell is that my parents went from having no kids one Christmas to having three. My sister Kate is eleven months older than I am; her birthday is December 27th. Then Ben and I are December 11th. Our older half-brother Nick was born December 9th. All four of us are December birthdays. So, the story that I like to tell people is that, because Kate was born December 27th, one Christmas my parents didn’t have any kids and then the next Christmas they had three.”

              She began dancing at four, mainly because, as she says, her parents needed somewhere to put her and her siblings, though Ben began dancing two years after she and Kate. Dancing wasn’t a very serious commitment for her, she says, just something that she did for fun. When she was eight years old, her brother Ben got an agent at their dance teacher’s urging and then, at eleven, joined the company of Ahrens and Flaherty’s Ragtime on Broadway as the understudy for Younger Brother. “I’ll be talking a lot about Ben. I don’t want you to think that I’m avoiding talking about myself by talking about Ben,” she says suddenly. She leans across the table to look me in the eyes earnestly. “It’s not that. It’s just that the circumstances of our family revolve a lot around him. It’s just that a lot of what impacted me was him.”

              After Ben moved to New York to join Ragtime , dance became Cook’s “thing.” Her sister Kate had stopped dancing by then and Ben was in New York, so she was able to figure out dance for herself. While Ben was in New York City for about a year and a half, two months with Ragtime and then with Billy Elliot , her parents alternated their time between New York and Virginia. One of them would spend a week in the NYC apartment with Ben while the other stayed at home with Kate and Emma. On Sunday, they would both take a bus and swap places overnight for the next week.

              “My parents both have full time jobs, and they did the best they could, dear God,” she laughs. “At the time a lot of close family friends were helping me get around, taking me to and from dance, and I was starting to figure out life, too, for myself.”

              She gets serious. “My sister has Bipolar and ADHD, so all while my parents and Ben were gone, I was the one there. Puberty and mental illness don’t go well together. It was really only Kate and me. It got really bad and I didn’t know how to deal with it. It created a big divide between us, and we really didn’t have a relationship. I really didn’t understand it, and that’s another thing that pushed me to find solace in dance. Kate danced until I was in seventh grade, so two years after Ben left, Kate stopped dancing, and I had something to myself. It was nice to have a breath and have a space all to myself. It was a rough two years, but then it kind of flipped.” She takes a second to say, “I talked with her last night which is why she’s on my mind.

              “She’s working with two-year-olds at a preschool, and she loves it. Honestly, now she’s my biggest supporter. It’s hard for me to accept compliments from her when she tries to give them to me. Because we had such a poor relationship growing up, it’s hard for me to adjust to it now. I’m just so happy for her.”

              When Cook was in seventh grade, Ben booked the national tour of Billy Elliot as Michael initially and then taking over the title role of Billy, after having performed in it on Broadway the summer after sixth grade as Tall Boy and understudying Michael. With Ben on tour, both of the Cook parents were at home. “He was doing that,” Cook jokes, “while I was just trying to survive middle school and freshman year of high school.” At 15 when Ben grew out of the Billy Elliot tour, he joined the rest of the family back in Virginia.

              “He was home for a year and it was so fun, because he actually got to come to high school with me. He was tutored while he was on tour, but now he actually got to go to high school for a year. It was nice for me because that was really the only time during our adolescence that we were together.”

              She’s articulate and careful in her word choice, always pausing before giving dates and ages to make sure she’s right. As she talks more about Ben and her family, it’s clear that she loves them dearly. She is always talking about the ways that they have influenced, shaped, and supported her. Hardly a sentence passes without a mention of them.

              The summer after their sophomore year of high school, Ben booked the national tour of Disney’s Newsies . He went back on tour while Cook continued to train intensely and attended Camp FLY, a dance intensive, and submitted a piece of her own choreography to “Farewell” by Rhianna. It was the first time that she’d choreographed anything and says that it was the first time that she was given a solo dance. She credits her teachers for the opportunity, saying that they were acknowledging that she was creating her own identity as a dancer outside of Ben. She says that it’s something that she’s always struggled with. Still, she dedicated the performance to Ben because she was sad to see him leave after having had him home for a year.

              “So it was after my junior year that I decided that this is what I want to do. Really, after seeing Ben when he was home and how hardworking he was and how dedicated to dance, it really made me realize that I loved dance. Not just the physical act of being there, but it was such a part of who I was. I realized that, ‘Oh, I can do this. I can make a career of this. I can go to college for this.’ I wanted this to be my life and be a part of the arts and performance community. That’s when we started looking at colleges and considering this as an option.”

              She ended up at Point Park University here in Pittsburgh where her friends already were. She tells the story of her audition for PPU, how she came out of that audition feeling the best of all the school auditions and how her best friend from home, also at PPU, Kyra, took her to The Yard in Market Square for dinner afterwards. She feels like she was meant to be here and, after three years, is ready to graduate and expand her horizons.

              After graduation, she’s open to everything. Dance, she says, is expanding and so are the career options. She’d love to be involved in musical theater, whether it’s regional, tour, or, and she admits, Broadway is a dream. She says that getting a job on a cruise ship right after graduation would be ideal. She loves to travel and would like to dance, while traveling, while getting paid. Her love for travel, she thinks, stems from a Europe trip that she and her brother took.

              The summer after her freshman year of college, Cook and her brother took a seventeen-day trip alone to Germany and Iceland. Cook had taken German in high school for four years and wanted to travel somewhere that she could use her language skills. They spent the majority of their time in Germany and ended with about two and a half days in Iceland. “My brother and I didn’t really grow up together. We had different upbringings because he was on tour a lot, so it was the most time that we had spent alone together ever. It was so weird to realize. We fought quite a bit, but we came out of it so close. I really think that the experiences that we had together are what make me want to travel again. I want to do that again; it was so much fun. We funded it ourselves, too, so it was completely independent.”

              Seeing Cook dance, it’s obvious how much of herself she gives to dance. She always looks like she’s having the time of her life and puts everything into her pieces. Even though she can dance all sorts of styles, jazz is her favorite and is her concentration at Point Park.

Thinking about Kate and how her sister’s mental illness impacted their family, Cook is choreographing a piece for Point Park’s student showcase. She submitted her concept and was chosen out of a large pool of applicants. She wants to shed light on mental health and is clear in the piece’s purpose. “It’s not to raise awareness; it’s not to pity someone with a mental disorder. It’s to show what happens in the mind of someone who’s having a manic-depressive episode. Because I think I didn’t understand it for so long – I don’t think I will fully understand it – but I sat down with Kate for coffee and she was very open with me about what it feels like in your head and what it feels like emotionally and in your body. She gave me a lot of ideas of what I could put into dance and told me to run with it. I’m really excited about it.”

              Though she says that she doesn't want to be a choreographer, Cook's piece that she choreographed,  Perpetual Mental Battle ,   is beautiful. The dancer taking Kate's role in the piece dances between four girls, two in red and two in blue. The two in red, representing a manic episode, are frantic with fast-paced choreography. The music is  heavily rhythmic, and the dancers' movements align perfectly. In the middle of the piece, the four girls in red and blue surround the other as she crouches on the ground before she slowly rolls up and the two girls in blue dance with her. The representation of a depressive episode, the choreography and the music slows, long languid  movements before speeding up a little. Cook's attention to detail and the palpable shifts in tone  her choreography creates are impressive and beautiful.  The piece conveys exactly what she intends it to: the mental battle for someone with Bipolar disorder.

              As Cook graduates this spring, she is a force to be reckoned with and a performer to be watched. She'll surely be making her mark on the dance and entertainment world.

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Subscriber only, new kids on the block’s ‘the magic summer tour’ takes on spac.

The NKOTB boys weren’t the only ones the audience was excited to see. Paula Abdul and her dancers performed a set of some of her biggest hits complete with complex choreography full of lifts, spins, and kicks. Whether it was the captivating choreography of the opening “Straight Up,” a flurry of costumes during “Vibeology,” a mock audition to “Cold Hearted” or even a show-stopping finale of “Forever Your Girl” the crowd was fully immersed and loved every second.

Amanda Montgomery, a longtime Abdul fan from NYC, said she was blown away by the stage presence and choreography of Abudl’s set. In her words, it was almost as if she was watching something out of a chorus line.

“Paula Abdul’s performance was spectacular,” Montgomery said. “She infuses all the energy and life into every second she is on stage. She’s still got it!”

DJ Jazzy Jeff was also an opener, warming the crowd up with throwbacks that had fans on their feet dancing and singing along. He also returned to the stage during the NKOTB set to spin some tunes from their most recent album.

From the minute the NKOTB stepped onto the stage, the audience was deafening, screaming out the lyrics to “Magic” as Johnathon, Joe, Jordan, Donnie, and Danny emerged, continuing that energy throughout the rest of the set as they screamed along to songs that some had been listening to since they were released decades ago.

“It’s not supposed to happen this way!” Donnie yelled to the booming crowd. “We’ve been to state after state after state, to giant cities, giant cities, and even more giant cities — and everywhere we go it gets louder and crazier and more insane.”

“But it couldn’t possibly get louder, crazier, and more insane than Jonesbeach, right? It couldn’t possibly get louder, crazier, and more insane than LA. And there is no way on earth that it could possibly get louder, crazier, and more insane than Boston, there’s no way! But somehow, someway, tiny little Saratoga Springs has done it!”

The NKOTB treated fans to some of their biggest hits like “You Got It (The Right Stuff),” “Cover Girl,” “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever),” “Remix (I Like The),”  “Call It What You Want” and more complete with the boy band staples of fun choreography and fun visuals of energized concertgoers singing along projected on the screens.

Crowdwork was the name of the game for the concert, with NKOTB making sure that everyone at SPAC felt a part of the performance. Whether that was having fans on stage during the opening numbers, splitting the crowd to sing along to “Remix (I Like The),” engaging with audience members throughout the night like serenading women with birthdays or bringing one fan named Bonnie on stage to sing along and joke around that left the audience chanting her name.

The NKOTB boys also ventured into the audience, heading to the back of the venue to perform closer to the lawn to give those fans a front-row seat for a few numbers. Be it snapping selfies, dawning gifted bracelets, or singing along to “Block Party” or “Tonight” from the light-up boxes positioned right near the lawn seats, the whole audience was involved and engaged.

Songs from their new album, which was released in May and debuted at No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales, were also performed, giving the fans a taste of the older by still just as good NKOTB. The album sold 14,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending May 23, and according to Luminate, it sold 14,194 copies in its first tracking period. This is the bands first first full-length studio album in over a decade since “10” in 2013.

Whether you came for the nostalgia factor, to enjoy music that has spanned a decade, to catch a peep at a shirtless NKOTB Boy — which happened multiple times throughout the show — or for some other reason together, the —performance was not one to disappoint and left audiences hopeful for another performance sometime soon.

New Kids on the Block performing at SPAC. (Emma Ralls - Medianews Group)

DJ Jazzy Jeff warmed up the crowd before Paula Abdul and New Kids on the Block took the stage. (Emma Ralls - Medianews Group)

Paula Abdul performing at SPAC. (Emma Ralls - Medainews Group)

"This is what 62 looks like," said Paula Abdul during her performance at SPAC. (Emma Ralls - Meadianews Group)

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• MAY 23, 2024

Getting Bonkers at Bingo

Hey there, fabulous listeners! Welcome back to Emma Tries – the podcast where we are being seen trying and share the journey of doing things we were too afraid of. After a short hiatus, we’re back with a bang (or should we say, a bingo?)! In this exciting episode, your favorite podcast host (Emma), takes on the wildly fun and utterly chaotic world of *Bongo Bingo* for the very first time. What’s Bongo Bingo, you ask? Imagine the classic game of bingo meets a lively nightclub, complete with dance-offs, hilarious prizes, and a vibrant crowd. It’s bingo, but with a twist! But that’s not all! We also address the elephant in the room – the brief hiatus the podcast has taken. Emma opens up about the reasons behind the break, the lessons learned, and how the time away has fueled new inspiration and fresh ideas for the show. We are learning to roll with the realities of creative ebbs and flows, and the importance of taking time to recharge. So grab your bingo cards and get ready for 20 minutes of fun and insights. Whether you’re a seasoned Bongo Bingo veteran or new to the concept, this episode promises to entertain and maybe even inspire. Listen now on your favorite podcast platform. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Your support keeps us going and growing! Love you, bye xoxo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• MAY 12, 2024

Working the Pole

We finally did it! After saying she has wanted to try pole fitness for nearly a decade, Emma takes on the vertical challenge in this episode of Emma Tries. Top tips of how to go about actually getting to and making the most out of a session and a big fan girl energy for the instructor at Flight Fitness inside 3. Tune in to hear that after a huge change in my life, I'm throwing myself into new things with even more energy than before, which may result in a few bruises. See you next time! Love you, bye xoxo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• MAY 1, 2024

Target Practice in the Middle of Nowhere

When you think about someone who does airsoft or air rifle shooting, are they male and of a certain temperament? Me too! Which is why I was so hesitant to try it for so long. This episode gets into what actually happens on the day (after holding space for the new Taylor Swift album TTPD of course) and how amazing the instructors are to make you feel like you're getting some actual training out of it. Listen along to hear how I wasn't as terrible as I imagined and also some suprising side effects. Remember to leave a 5* review and see you back next time! Love you, bye xoxo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• APR 11, 2024

Sweat Sessions to Sam Smith

Ever felt like dance isn't for you? This episode looks into how dance fitness has made entering the world of physical challenges a bit more fun and inclusive. I get side tracked about the new book I've recently finished and almost forget to even talk about the title of this episode! Tune in to hear about my sweat-inducing sessions, and why I would recommend dance fitness to shake up how you view moving your body. Keep up to date between episodes: https://www.instagram.com/emmatries_podcast/ See you next time! Love you, bye xoxo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• APR 4, 2024

Writing it all down

In this second installment, Emma takes a deep dive into the world of journaling - a personal, therapeutic practice of having a dialogue with yourself. I share my own experiences of starting a journaling journey, from the initial struggles to the insightful revelations. It helped me confront my fear of failure, showing me the value of my inherent worth and the necessity of reframing limiting beliefs. All in all, my journaling experiment was enlightening. You never know what you might discover about yourself. See you next time! Love you, bye xoxo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• © Emma Cook

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Kaley cuoco is engaged to tom pelphrey after saying she’d ‘never get married again’.

Kaley Cuoco is engaged again .

The “Big Bang Theory” alum announced on her Instagram Story Wednesday that she and her boyfriend, Tom Pelphrey, are set to tie the knot after two years of dating.

“Amazing weekend,” Cuoco, 38, wrote over a photo of her and the “Ozark” alum, 42, that put her new diamond ring on display.

She also shared a black-and-white picture of the pair walking with their daughter, Matilda, whom they welcomed in March 2023.

The engagement may come as a shock to the “Flight Attendant” star’s fans, as she famously swore off marriage after her first two failed nuptials.

“I will never get married again,” she succinctly told Glamour  in an interview for her April 2022 cover shoot.

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“I would love to have a long-lasting relationship or a partnership. But I will never get married again,” Cuoco reiterated. “Absolutely not. You can literally put that on the cover.”

The “8 Simple Rules” alum was first married to tennis player Ryan Sweeting  from December 2013 to May 2016. She then moved on with equestrian Karl Cook, whom she married in June 2018.

Cuoco and Cook announced their separation in a joint statement in September 2021, telling Page Six that their “current paths” pushed them in “opposite directions.” They finalized their divorce in June 2022, just two months after she met Pelphrey.

The “Based on a True Story” star and the former soap opera actor publicly confirmed their romance in May 2022 by posting PDA-packed images on their respective Instagram accounts. Months later, she revealed that their relationship was “love at first sight.”

“We have the same management team. … My manager actually took me as her guest to the ‘Ozark’ premiere, and I met him there,” she shared.

“It was like the angels started singing. I was like, ‘Hallelujah.’ It was very magical. … It was perfect.”

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