Michael Douglas says doctor advised him to ‘make up’ a lie about his tongue cancer diagnosis to avoid industry ‘connotations’
Michael Douglas opened up about one of the hardest chapters of his life, revealing why he publicly misdescribed his stage 4 tongue cancer as throat cancer.
The Oscar-winning actor reflected on his diagnosis during a two-part interview on Kelly Ripa’s “Let’s Talk Off Camera” podcast, released on Wednesday, October 21.
During part two of the conversation, Douglas explained that the decision to refer to his illness as throat cancer was made after a recommendation by his doctor, particularly given his Hollywood career.
‘It Really Wasn’t Throat Cancer’
“I want to talk about a very dark part of your life: you received a cancer diagnosis,” Ripa began.
She continued, “You said that it was throat cancer, but it really wasn’t throat cancer. Explain everything to me and when did you first know something was wrong?”
“Well, unfortunately, I first knew something was wrong about nine months before this,” Douglas confessed. “When I had gone to my doctor and I had shared, you know, a soreness in the back of my throat, they gave me some antibiotics and this and that.”
‘I Saw Him Look Me in the Eye’
The Basic Instinct actor continued that the pain “persisted” for months until he went up to Canada with a friend of his.
“I went with a friend of mine to Canada, and I was just telling him in passing about this,” he said. “He’d had cancer in his life. And he said, ‘Maybe you can see my doctor.’ And I went up to this doctor in Canada.”
Douglas recalled the details of the appointment, sharing, “I remember seeing a little wooden tongue depressor, and it was up very close to me, and he held my tongue down, and he looked in there, and our eyes were like four inches away from each other. And then he slowly looked in, and then I saw him look me in the eye, and then look back again.”
‘I Had Cancer’
“Then slowly took the depressor out, and he said, ‘Well, I need to take a biopsy of that.’ I said, ‘A biopsy of what?'” he added.
“He snipped a little thing off the back of my tongue. And then three days later, he called me into the office and told me that I had cancer,” the 82-year-old told Ripa.
‘Say That You Have Throat Cancer’
Douglas was treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
“Dr. Shaw explained to me, ‘This cancer that you have, if we’re not successful, I’m going to turn you over to people for radiation and chemotherapy. But if that does not work, then we’re probably going to have to remove part of your jaw and part of your tongue,'” the movie star recalled.
His doctor then gave a specific suggestion on how he should handle the news being in the public eye: “‘So my recommendation, because of the work that you’re in, is to say that you have throat cancer, so they will not have any of the connotations that tongue cancer will have.'”
“And that’s why we kind of made up this story between the doctor and myself about that,” Douglas confessed.
He concluded, “And fortunately, well, it’s been 16 years now, I guess, just about, and I’m cancer-free, but it was stage four.”
