Stanley Tucci has revealed he battled cancer in secret three years ago after discovering a large tumour at the base of his tongue.
The actor, 60, revealed in a new interview with Vera magazine that he underwent successful treatment but had to use a feeding tube for six months.
He explained: ‘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.’
Stanley’s first wife Kate Spath-Tucci, with whom he shares three children, had died in 2009 from breast cancer.
He added: ‘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.’
As well as his older children, Stanley also has a son and daughter from wife Felicity Blunt, the older sister of actress Emily Blunt, who he has been married to since 2012.
Stanley says his cancer is ‘unlikely’ to return but admitted that going through it made him change his perspective on life.
‘[Cancer] makes you more afraid and less afraid at the same time,’ he says.
‘I feel much older than I did before I was sick. But you still want to get ahead and get things done.’
Stanley revealed earlier in the year that he still grieves for his first wife, saying in an interview on CBS in February: ‘You never stop grieving. It’s still hard after 11 years.
’It’s still hard – and it will always be hard. But you can’t let it… and she would never want any of us to ever wallow in that grief and let it take over our lives. She would never want that. She wasn’t like that.’
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