Stanley Tucci has admitted being diagnosed with cancer years after his first wife Kathryn lost her own battle with the disease was ‘awful’, but said the experience helped him transform his life.
The actor, 64, who is now married to Emily Blunt’s sister Felicity, 44, was diagnosed with oral cancer in 2017 after doctors found a tumour at the base of his tongue.
Stanley, who is now cancer-free, underwent 35 days of treatment, including six rounds of chemotherapy and lost 35 pounds and was left unable to eat couldn’t eat, and had to have a feeding tube for six months.
He said: ‘It was awful to go through it after my wife had died and friends had died, but I am happier than I was before,’
Kathryn, with whom Stanley shares son Nicolo, 25, and daughter Camilla, 23, tragically died of breast cancer in 2009 aged just 47, with the actor previously revealing how he was still affected by the loss and had ‘never stopped grieving’.
Reflecting on how his own illness had impacted his life he explained that he now takes his health more seriously and has become an exercise fanatic.
Stanley Tucci has admitted being diagnosed with cancer years after his first wife Kathryn lost her own battle with the disease ‘awful’, but said the experience helped him transform his life
The actor, who is now married to Emily Blunt’s sister Felicity, 44, was diagnosed with oral cancer in 2017 after doctors found a tumour on his tongue (Pictured with Kathryn 2008)
He told The Times: ‘I really can’t go more than 24 hours without [excessing], I’m in much better shape than I was before I got sick’.
‘I have a stronger sense of self, in 15 years I’ll be 80 years old and there’s a lot of stuff that I want to do before then’.
Last year wife Felicity, who has been married to actor for 12 years and together share Matteo, ten, and seven-year-old Emilia, revealed that his cancer treatment was ‘pretty horrific’.
Speaking at the Bazaar At Work Summit about her and her husband’s love for food, the literary agent candidly said: ‘Stan is the same, he loves food. It’s well known that my husband went through cancer treatment, and it was pretty horrific.’
She added: ‘It was an oral cancer, and he couldn’t believe he couldn’t even really speak. He had to have a feeding tube.
‘I never really understood how much of our social engagement or our work life is positioned around food and drink.’
‘It’s amazing how when you genuinely cannot eat, how it leaves you outside of so much. Seeing him recover that, and when he couldn’t taste anything, it was genuinely frightening.’
She added: ‘We’ve been through quite a journey with eating, Stan and I, and it’s what we really love to do together.’
He said: ‘It was awful to go through it after my wife had died and friends had died, but I am happier than I was before,’ (Kathryn and Stanley pictured 2006)
Last year his wife Felicity Blunt, sister of actress Emily, revealed that his cancer treatment was ‘pretty horrific’ as he was left unable to eat or taste his food
In 2021 Stanley opened up about his ongoing grief following Kathryn’s death and admitted the loss continued to haunt him more than a decade later.
‘It’s still hard after 11 years,’ the Oscar-nominated screen star told CBS Sunday Morning. ‘It’s still hard. And it will always be hard. But you can’t let it …’
He aid of the social worker, his late spouse of 14 years, ‘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.’
He also brought up her passing speaking with NPR Saturday in a discussion about death: ‘I lost my wife 11 years ago to breast cancer. And there’s no question that, you know, that also – you know, that’s a scary thing to watch, and it’s, you know, a sad thing for all of us – devastating.’
In a 2010 interview with the outlet, Stanley said he was ‘mostly sad’ following her untimely passing the previous year.
‘There’s all the blaming of yourself, which you can’t do, but you kind of do,’ he said at the time.
‘I’m sad for Kate that she can’t be here, and I’m sad for my children that they didn’t have the opportunity to spend more time with her because she was an extraordinary person.’
