Michael Douglas has admitted that he told the world he had throat cancer, when he in fact had tongue cancer.
The 69-year-old opened up on the UK talk show Good Morning last week, saying that during his promotional tour for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps his doctor advised him to tell the press he had throat cancer because of the negative connotations associated with tongue cancer.
“[My doctor] said, ‘Let’s just say it’s throat cancer…We don’t want to say it’s tongue cancer,” said Michael.
“I said, ‘Why is that?’ He said, ‘Well, if you really want to know why – if we do have to do surgery, it’s not going to be pretty. You’ll lose part of your jaw and your tongue, and all of that stuff.'”
The father of three managed to avoid losing his tongue and has been cancer free for two years, but his appearance did change.
“With my type of cancer, if you’re clean after two years, there’s a 95% chance it’s not coming back.”
