Martin Kemp has revealed every month he lives, years after discovering his brain tumour, is a ‘blessing’ (Picture: Neil Mockford/GC Images)
Martin Kemp has said he thinks he only has 10 years to live, he’s revealed in a conversation with his son Roman Kemp.
The Spandau Ballet star made the admission during a conversation in their new podcast episode, FFS! My Dad Is Martin Kemp, titled ‘death’.
In it, the 62-year-old is asked by his radio presenter son how long he thinks he has left.
He replied: ‘I’ll be really honest with you, 10 years.’
As I’m A Celebrity star Roman, 31, begged him to be serious about the matter and not ‘joke’, Martin said: ‘I don’t know how long I’ve got left, but I will tell you, since I was the age of 34, when I went through all of that brain tumour scare, I spent two years of my life thinking I was going to die.
‘And I think after that, everything else, every day, every year, every month that I’ve lived, every experience that I’ve had has been a bonus.
The Celebrity Gogglebox star was talking to his son Roman in a podcast episode on death (Picture: Channel 4)
Martin was diagnosed with two benign brain tumours in 1995 (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
‘And I will tell you something, it’s really strange that when I was 34 and stuff and I went through that brain tumour stuff, I was practically resigned to the fact that I was going to die, but I was quite happy with my lot, because I had lived the most incredible experiences.’
He went on to say that he’s ‘lived stuff that people were dreaming about doing’, including in being in a popular 80s rock band, flying around the world on jets and even ‘drinking champagne at 8 o’clock in the morning’.
Martin added: ‘I’ve lived the most incredible life. By the time I was 34 and I thought I was going to die, I spent two years thinking about it, I was quite happy, I thought, if I go, do you know what? What a life, and that was back then.
‘So every year that I live, every month that I’m alive now is like a bonus.’
Martin’s wife Shirlie had found a lump on his head (Picture: Dave Benett/Getty Images for Netflix)
‘Every month that I’m alive now is like a bonus,’ he told Roman (Picture: Getty Images)
Martin was diagnosed with two benign brain tumours – one the size of a grapefruit – in 1995.
He revealed on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories in 2014 that it was his wife who had discovered a lump in his head, leading him to find out that there was a mass growing in the middle of his brain after he sought medical advice.
‘If they’d never found this one growing out, they wouldn’t have found the one in the middle until it was too late, and that was the one that would have killed me,’ Martin explained.
He underwent surgery to remove the tumours as well as having radiotherapy treatment, and although he recovered, he has been left with epilepsy as a result of the two tumours, which he controls with medication.
‘Having epilepsy is quite common for anyone who has a brain tumour or is recovering from one,’ he previously explained.
‘I still take drugs to suppress it and will have to do so for the rest of my life.’
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