Food connoisseur Stanley Tucci said he had to use a feeding tube for six months while fighting his “brutal” battle against oral cancer.
The “Devil Wears Prada” star said his cancer took a toll on his ability to taste and eat and caused his weight to plummet.
“I lost 35 pounds,” he told Willie Geist on “Sunday Sitdown.”
“I couldn’t eat. I had a feeding tube for six months and everything tasted like you know what and smelled like you know what.
“And it took months and months and months for me to finally be able to eat again and then taste properly again,” he continued.
The “Searching for Italy” host said that his first wife, Kate, died from breast cancer at age 47 in 2009, which made his diagnosis all the more “terrifying.”
“My late wife and I, we traveled all over the world trying to find a cure for her. So when I got it, I was completely shocked,” Tucci, 62, told Geist. “I was terrified, absolutely terrified.”
Tucci credits his wife, Felicity Blunt, and his sister-in-law, Emily Blunt, with helping him persevere through his diagnosis.
“I was so afraid,” the “Citadel” actor said, “but Felicity was very insistent. She was incredible. Still is incredible.”
The “Hunger Games” star revealed in September 2021 that he had quietly battled cancer three years earlier. Tucci explained that doctors had found a tumor on his tongue that was too large to operate on, so they treated it with high-dose radiation and chemo.
Tucci explained at the time that the cancer was unlikely to return, but his children still suffered with the news.
He shared twins Nicolo and Isabel and daughter Camilla with Kate and has two younger children, Matteo and Emilia, with Felicity.
“The kids were great, but it was hard for them,” he said. “…I could barely make it to the twins’ high school graduation.”
