Stanley Tucci forced to use feeding tube for 6 months during oral cancer fight: ‘I was absolutely terrified’
Two years after revealing he had secretly battled oral cancer, Stanley Tucci has told how he was forced to use a feeding tube for six months while fighting the disease.
Stanley Tucci was forced to use a feeding tube for six months while fighting oral cancer.
‘The Devil Wears Prada’ actor, 62, revealed in September 2021 he had quietly battled the disease three years earlier after doctors found a tumour on his tongue that was too large to operate on, so it was treated it with high-dose radiation and chemo, and he’s now spoken about the horrific treatment he underwent to treat the disease.
He told Willie Geist on ‘Sunday Sitdown’ about his oral cancer fight: “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.”
Stanley also said his diagnosis was all the more “terrifying” as his first wife Kathryn Smith died from breast cancer aged 47 in 2009.
The actor, who has five kids and been married to literary agent Felicity Blunt, 42, since 2012, said: “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.
“I was terrified, absolutely terrified.”
He added about his wife and his actress sister-in-law, Emily Blunt, 40, helped him through his cancer fight: “I was so afraid, but Felicity was very insistent. She was incredible. Still is incredible.”
Stanley had twins Nicolo and Isabel, 23, and daughter Camilla, 21, with Kathryn, and has Matteo, eight, and Emilia, five, with Felicity, and said even though he told them in 2021 his cancer was unlikely to return they were still traumatised by his fight with the illness.
He said: “The kids were great, but it was hard for them… I could barely make it to the twins’ high school graduation.”
