Swedish actor Dolph Lundgren has revealed his secret battle with cancer and said he’s been fighting the disease for eight years.
The 65-year-old Rocky IV star opened up about his diagnosis and fight with the life-threatening disease in the recent In Depth With Graham Bensinger episode, revealing he was first diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2015.
“They found a tumor in my kidney, and they took it out … but then they did a biopsy, and it was cancerous,” the actor explained. “Then I did scans every six months, then you do it every year, then it was fine for about five years.”
The martial artist went into remission, but cancer returned in 2020, and this time doctors found six tumors in his kidneys and liver. According to Lundgren, he was told by one of his doctors that he only had 2-3 years to live.
“At that point, it started to hit me that this is kind of something serious,” he recalled. “The surgeon called me and said, ‘No, it’s grown now. It’s too big. We can’t take it out.’ It’s like the size of like a small lemon.”
The Expendables star had to start his chemotherapy treatment which has had awful side effects on his health, resulting in constant diarrhea and massive weight loss.
“His mouth got really sore,” Lundgren’s 25-year-old fiancée, Emma Krokdal said. “His hands got sore, [his] feet, and he couldn’t eat anything warm, anything cold or anything spicy.”
“So that was a struggle to get food down, so he kept losing weight.”
The duo got engaged in June 2020 – Krokdal is a Los Angeles-based personal trainer who is 40 years younger than Lundgren.
At one point during the interview, the Aquaman actor said he almost lost all hope and started thinking he would die soon.
“They started saying things like, ‘You should take a break and spend more time with your family.’ So I kinda asked him, ‘How long do you think I have left?’ and I think he said, “Two to three years” but I could tell in his voice that it was less,” he recounted.
“I thought it was it for sure. You kind of look at your life and go ‘I’ve had a frickin’ great life.’ I’ve lived like five lifetimes in one. So it wasn’t like I was bitter about it.”
The Best Man star also talked about his use of steroids back in the day and said he thinks they impacted his body.
“I tried steroids back in the 80s, 90s. I don’t know if that is something to do with the cancer, of course it struck me as it could have something to do with it,” he explained. “I thought about it, you always think you’ve made a mistake. I think maybe there is some connection between testosterone therapy and cancer.”
“I was on steroids when I was younger, on and off for maybe ten years. Depending on the kind of movie I made.”
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Sources: In Depth With Graham Bensinger on YouTube
