Mark Hoppus confessed that when he was diagnosed with stage 4 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in April of this year, he couldn’t help but feel like he was overdue for a tragedy of this magnitude.
In an interview with GQ, the Blink-182 singer explained that it all began last spring when he felt a “weird knot” in his shoulder and decided to go get it checked out. Hoppus then received his lymphoma diagnosis just moments after walking into a new therapist’s office. He said he’s thankful for the unusual timing of that phone call as therapy has helped him enormously with dealing with his cancer and how the illness has impacted his life. “I had a really dark time after finding out,” he said. “I went through this whole period of like, not why me, but of course me. Why wouldn’t it be me? We’ve had so much good luck and good fortune, and things have kind of fallen into place for me specifically for so long, that of course I was due. I was due for something tragic.”
He also disclosed that his initial cancer announcement on social media was a total accident. In late June, Hoppus shared a photo of himself strapped in to a chemotherapy chair with the caption, “Yes hello. One cancer treatment, please,” posting it on what he thought was his Instagram Stories for “close friends,” but actually sending it out to his million-plus followers. “Throughout the day as I’m getting chemotherapy and more bags of chemicals are being dropped into my body, other people are reaching out and they’re like, ‘Dude, what’s going on?’” He continued, “Chemo is like being on the worst international, overnight flight where you can’t sleep or get comfortable. I felt so shitty. And the brain fog is so bad. The chemo brain is just heartbreaking to me because I can feel myself diminished mentally right now.” So, he says, “Maybe part of me subconsciously posted it to my main, but I definitely didn’t do it on purpose. But I don’t know. It kind of felt like a Band-Aid had been ripped off and I was able to be honest with people.” Hoppus announced in September that he is now cancer-free and even returned to the stage in October to sing some of Blink-182’s hits with Travis Barker and Kevin “Thrasher” Gruft.
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