Michael Douglas Reveals Why He Lied About His Cancer

In an interview with Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Douglas has revealed that he lied about the type of cancer he was diagnosed with following warnings from doctors that the truth could affect the press for impending film release at the time, Wall Street 4.

During the topical discussion on UK chat show This Morning’s ‘Male Cancer Awareness Week’, aired on Thursday 10th October 2013, the Academy Award winning actor admitted to telling the press that he was battling throat cancer rather than what he was actually suffering with – stage four tongue cancer.

He claimed: “This was right before I had to go on a big tour for ‘Wall Street 4’ so we kind of said there’s no way we can cancel the tour and say we don’t feel well… You’ve got to tell them.”

He then added “But, the surgeon said let’s just say it’s throat cancer. I said ‘OK, you don’t want to say it’s tongue cancer?’, I said ‘why’s that?’ and he said ‘well, if you really want to know why, if we do have to have surgery it’s not going to be pretty. You’ll lose part of you jaw and your tongue and all of that stuff. So I said, ‘OK sure’…”

Following the disclosure of this statement, Michael also divulged his current state of health, after his first diagnosis was over three years ago back in August 2010.

He said: “I was having checks every three months, then you go to six months, and just before I got here I had my last check up and I passed two years and I’m clean. And with my type of cancer if you’re clean after two years, there’s a 95 percent chance of it not coming back.”