You can say this for Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford: he has one hell of a poker face. The Metal God has been soldiering ahead with the band’s 50th anniversary tour in 2021 — but he’s now revealed that over last year, he’s been fighting cancer.
As reported by Loudwire, Halford revealed in a recent interview with Heavy Consequences that during 2020, he was battling cancer — but that it’s now in remission.
“I had my little cancer battle a year ago, which I got through and that’s in remission now, thank God,” said Halford. “That happened while we were all locked down, so things happen for a reason as far as time sequence of events. I have nothing but gratitude to be at this point in my life, still doing what I love the most.”
Rob has also added a new chapter to his recent memoir Confess, in which he discusses learning that he had a tumor: “I felt a combination of shock, horror, and oddly, relief — at least now I know!…’Am I going to die?’ It was all I could think of. I know blokes who’ve died of prostate cancer. ‘No, you’re not going to die, Rob,’ said Dr. Ali.”
While Rob said he was “getting proper mardy and wallowing in my anger” at first, things changed when he watched a commercial for the Phoenix Children’s hospital. “It showed kids with cancer. Some only babies. They were lying there, with tubes coming out of them, fighting for their lives. They didn’t know what was going on…It made me feel totally ashamed of myself; Rob, how dare you be so selfish? And from that second, I change my entire mental attitude towards my disease.”
Everyone at The Pit sends out their biggest congratulations to Rob for overcoming this terrible disease, and hopes he remains cancer-free in the future.
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Words by Chris Krovatin
