Seventysomething Brit rockers and cancer survivors Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood, still rocking their iconic porcupine-y hairdos, recently hugged each other onstage at a charity event to celebrate, well, being alive.
“I join Ronnie now who's had lung cancer,” said Stewart, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2016 but hadn’t revealed his diagnosis until this past September.
Read MoreStewart, best known for his classic hit, “Maggie May,” kept his journey private for two years as he underwent treatment. When it came to the decision about whether to share his diagnosis with his fans, he consulted Wood, who had come out with his diagnosis only three months later.
As Wood told the British paper Metro UK, “He was like, ‘Should I mention that I've had cancer?’ I said, ‘Rod, it's personal, do whatever you want. If you want to tell them, tell them.'”
When Wood went public with his diagnosis, he told Mail Online that he had had part of his lung surgically removed to remove the cancer.
“They caught it early,” Wood told the Mail. “People have to get checked. Seriously have to get checked. I was bloody lucky but then I've always had a very strong guardian angel looking out for me. By rights I shouldn't be here.”
Wood chain-smoked for most of his life. “I had this thought at the back of my mind after I gave up smoking a year ago: ‘How can I have got through 50 years of chain-smoking and all the rest of my bad habits without something going on in there?'”
Both rockers are now sharing their stories to emphasize the lifesaving importance of early detection (Stewart, like Wood, caught his cancer early thanks to routine screening tests).
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