Former W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes has offered a health update amid his battle with prostate cancer. According to him, the disease is “100% curable.”
Holmes told The Metal Voice the following when asked about his initial diagnosis:
“What happened was last February [of 2025] I went in for the check on my throat, to the doctor here [in France], the throat doctor. And I told him about a year ago, ‘Hey,’ I go, ‘Hey, doc, I’ve been kind of like whizzing weird. And I wake up three, four times a night, whiz, go right back to sleep. Wake up. It’s weird. I have never done that.’ And I go, ‘I think I got a problem down there.’ And he goes, ‘Ah, you’re just getting old. That’s just your prostate.’ And for a year I just was, like, ‘I’m just getting old. And that’s okay.’ And then I went in. They did a scan. They did a full body, all the way down past my knees this time. Usually they just do the neck to see if the cancer from my throat’s coming back. And this time then I went in to see him and he goes… I went in and I thought he was gonna go, ‘Chris, everything’s cool. We’ll see you next year.’ And he goes, ‘Everything’s not cool.’ He showed it up on a screen, he goes, ‘See that? You got prostate cancer.’ I go, ‘Damn!’ My dad had it, and they say it’s hereditary or whatever. And the good thing is it’s 100% curable. It’s just going through what I gotta go through.”
He also explained why he went public with the news:
“[TESLA bassist and Chris’s bandmate in T3RMINAL] Brian Wheat and I and everybody, we tried to keep it quiet because we didn’t want the word cancer and this and that. It’s bad, ’cause we just think T3RMINAL, it’s gonna break out next year, hopefully. I had a [solo] concert [scheduled for] Wales this month. I had one, but I can’t go. But what happened is I went in and did a biopsy. They wanted me to pay for it, which wasn’t cheap. And we were, like, ‘Well, we’re gonna get it on the insurance.’ And [my wife] goes, ‘Okay, then we’ll work it out then when you find out,’ blah, blah, blah. Well, months go by. They come in and find out that it’s a cancer. They gotta take care of it, whatever. And then the insurance thing came in. They only give me emergency insurance, which only pays for the radiation. That’s it. Not for any of the scans, not the medicine, not traveling to the hospital, whatever. So anyway, that happens, and then about maybe last month, [my wife] and I were sitting here. We were adding up everything to see if we can get through the year, and we just went, ‘There’s no way we’re gonna get close. There’s no possible way.’ And so I called up Brian. I go, ‘I need to do a GoFundMe. It’s the only way I’m gonna make it through.’ And it’s helping me, so I won’t be kissing the credit card company and having to claim bankruptcy. I’ve never done that. But it’s okay. I’m getting through it. A lot of people are donating, helping me out. I appreciate it.”
He also added the following when asked if his past battle with throat cancer prepared him for this:
“Definitely. I know getting on the machine that you go inside and it does the radiation, I’ve done that with my throat. I did seven weeks of that. At first they were gonna make me do five weeks. And I was supposed to start in May, and then they pushed it back to June, then they pushed it to July. And I was worried about, if it was gonna metastasize. The doctor said, ‘No, if you’re doing a hormonal therapy, it won’t.’ So I started doing it last month, and I’ve done three weeks. And it’s a little harder than getting on the table and putting a mask on that goes around your chest and then goes up, ’cause it’s on your waist. So they put two tattoo marks, one by my wiener, one by my belly button and one on each side. And you get on the table, and then the computer has lasers on the side. They line you up, and then you go in… It X-rays you and it pulls you out, and then it calibrates how the mechanism, how it shoots the radiation. You can hear it… And then you go in and it starts the treatment. It takes about six to eight minutes, each run… But I’ve done three weeks. I got five more [weeks] to go. Every day, except Saturday and Sunday.”
[via Blabbermouth]
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