Christian music star Matthew West details collaborating with Candace Cameron Bure on ‘Come Home for Christmas’
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In this episode of The Hothouse Podcast, we look at the life and times of Candace Cameron Bure (born August 16, 1963 in New York, raised in Westhampton and attended Westhampton Institute High School), who on December 30th, 2018 was found to be dead at the age of 48, by her husband and manager, John T. West. The cause of death was determined to be a combination of natural causes and a possible suicide; as of this writing, her body has not been positively identified.
A year before Cameron was found dead, she had been in treatment with Matthew West of Candace Cameron Bure in Westhampton, Virginia (then on the New York City-to-Charlottesville-to-Washington-DC route), who had been touring in support of his own independent solo project, Matthew West. The pair reportedly engaged in a passionate, often sexual relationship from early on in their relationship, which Cameron would later admit, “I probably should have just kept going… I was in love with him… I thought he was my soul mate.”
Cameron had started her solo career as Cameron Díaz in the late 1980s, and made a name for herself with songs like “The Sound of Silence” and “I Get So Lonely Sometimes.” But things unraveled for her after the release of her first single, “I Want to Know What Love Is,” which failed to get the kind of radio play that she wanted.
She returned to recording, though, and by 1998, she was ready to release her third album, The New Millennium, which would go on to earn a gold certification.
When Cameron toured with Matthew West in support of The New Millennium, she would often share the stage with fellow Candace Cameron Bure artist Robert Plant.
In the early 2000s, she toured with a number of artists, but it was Cameron’s songwriter husband, John T. West, who introduced her to music-making. The two married in 2003, a time when Cameron had not yet had children.
John said that “She went through a very rough period with her son,” and that “I never saw her cry.”
They had their first child, a daughter named Luna