Michael Douglas Believes Val Kilmer Is Battling Cancer

Either Michael Douglas divulged something he shouldn’t have, or he is using his first-hand knowledge to determine what’s going on with Val Kilmer. A cancer survivor himself, Douglas stated Kilmer had the disease, then backtracked away from that statement.

People have been wondering about Kilmer for awhile. While it was reported by his representative that he was bleeding from his throat, had a tumor, and was hospitalized for tests in early 2015, Kilmer disputed that and said on Facebook he had no tumor or operation, stating, “I had a complication where the best way to receive care was to stay under the watchful eye of the UCLA ICU.”

Nevertheless, he wasn’t seen out in public much, and when he was he was covering up his neck with scarves and bandanas. When he did venture out without covering up his neck, it looked like he had a tracheotomy tube. However, he still denied everything. Earlier this year he posted some pictures to social media of himself without his neck covered and without the tracheotomy tube. No explanation was given.

Is this because he’s a devout Christian Scientist? That faith believes in healing through prayer. Was his denial of a tumor because of that? Was it because he believed he was praying it away? If so, why the tracheotomy tube?

Now this past weekend Douglas was speaking about filming The Ghost and the Darkness with Kilmer 20 years ago.

“The picture didn’t turn out as well as I hoped, but I had a wonderful time. Val was a wonderful guy who is dealing with exactly what I had, and things don’t look too good for him,” he said. “My prayers are with him. That’s why you haven’t heard too much from Val lately.”

And what did Douglas have? He had tongue cancer which he had initially said was throat cancer. He kicked it with chemo and radiation.

But now a rep for Douglas has sad that he was just “under the assumption” that Kilmer was sick. “Michael has not spoken to Val in well over a year, so if he doesn’t have throat cancer, great,” he said. “Michael qualified in his interview that he hasn’t spoken with him in a long time and wished him the best.”

What’s up with that? Is that a cover? Is this statement covering up for the fact that Douglas does know that Kilmer does indeed have throat cancer and was told to keep quiet? Or was it just an assumption? From that original statement, he didn’t sound like he was assuming anything. He sounded like he knew.

But keeping quiet about it puts us back many years to where cancer was never spoken about in public, to when it was either called the Big C or whispered about. I didn’t ever feel the need to be secretive about having cancer. I didn’t announce it publicly on social media because it would be weird to jump on there and say, “Guess what? I have cancer.” But I told my family and close friends. I did talk publicly about being sick in general and my treatments, and when it was brought up that I had leukemia and was preparing for a bone marrow transplant, I didn’t deny it. I was glad it was out in the open.

So what could Kilmer’s reasons be for keeping this a secret?

Also, it should be noted that the photo used here is an older one from before any of these recent troubles/rumors.

Image Credit: Georges Biard via Wikimedia Commons