Stanley Tucci opens up on ‘brutal’ side effects of cancer treatments
Claire Reid
Featured Image Credit: Steven May /Associated Press / Alamy
Stanley Tucci has opened up about the ‘brutal’ treatments he underwent after being diagnosed with cancer.
In 2021, the 62-year-old actor publicly disclosed that he’d been diagnosed with cancer four years earlier after doctors found a large tumour at the base of his tongue - which they were also unable to operate on.
Thankfully, the Citadel star has since been given the all-clear but his road to becoming cancer-free wasn’t an easy one.
Speaking on a recent episode of the Sunday Sitdown podcast, Tucci told host Willie Geist that he was ‘terrified’ after getting the diagnosis - particularly as his first wife Kate Spath-Tucci, who passed away in 2009, had died due to breast cancer.
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“My late wife and I, we travelled all over the world trying to find a cure for her. So when I got it, I was completely shocked,” Tucci said.
“I was terrified, absolutely terrified.”
When asked about the treatments he underwent, Tucci said they were ‘awful’ and 'brutal'.
He added: “I lost 35 pounds. I couldn’t eat. I had a feeding tube for six months, and everything tasted like you-know-what and smelled like you-know-what. And it took months and months and months for me to finally be able to eat again and then taste properly again.”
He also heaped praise on his wife, Felicity Blunt, for supporting him as he went through treatment.
“She was incredible,” he said. “Still is incredible.”
Tucci has previously said that he had ‘vowed’ not to have chemotherapy after watching his late wife go through it.
Speaking to Vera magazine in 2021, he said: "It was too big to operate, so they had to do high-dose radiation and chemo. I'd vowed I'd never do anything like that, because my first wife died of cancer, and to watch her go through those treatments for years was horrible."
Tucci also revealed that he had been worried about the impact his illness might have on his family, continuing: "The kids were great, but it was hard for them. I had a feeding tube for six months. I could barely make it to the twins' high school graduation."
Commenting on the impact the diagnosis had had on him, he added: "[Cancer] makes you more afraid and less afraid at the same time. I feel much older than I did before I was sick. But you still want to get ahead and get things done."
Tucci has been in remission since he completed his treatment in 2018.