Friends actor James Michael Tyler, who played Central Perk’s Gunther on the sitcom, has revealed his stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis in a new interview.
Speaking to Today, Tyler said that he had first been diagnosed in September 2018 after an annual check-up, but because the cancer had been detected so late, it had now spread to other parts of his body.
“I was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, which had spread to my bones,” Tyler explained.
“I’ve been dealing with that diagnosis for almost the past three years. … It’s stage 4 (now). Late-stage cancer. So eventually, you know, it’s gonna probably get me.”
Speaking of his initial diagnosis, the Friends actor explained: “I was 56 years old at the time, and they screen for PSA, which is a prostate-specific antigen.
“That came back at an extraordinarily high number … So I knew immediately when I went online and I saw the results of my blood test and blood work that there was obviously something quite wrong there. Nearly immediately, my doctor called me and said ‘Hey, I need you to come in tomorrow because I suspect that you may have quite a serious problem with your prostate.'”
While Tyler had undergone hormone therapy, which he said “worked amazingly for about a year” and allowed him to “go about life regularly” for a period of time, during the pandemic he had become paralysed from the waist down due to tumours that had grown on his spine.
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“All I had to do was take a pill in the morning and the night, and boom, life was pretty much normal,” said Tyler. “I was feeling fine, honestly. I had no symptoms, I didn’t feel any symptoms. And it was very easy to regulate.”
“[But then] I missed going in for a test, which was not a good thing,” Tyler said. “So the cancer decided to mutate at the time of the pandemic, and so it’s progressed.”
Tyler went on the reiterate the importance of regular screenings as an early diagnosis could save lives.
“There are other options available to men if they catch it before me,” Tyler said. “Next time you go in for just a basic exam or your yearly checkup, please ask your doctor for a PSA test. It’s easily detectable. … If it spreads beyond the prostate to the bones, which is most prevalent in my form, it can be a lot more difficult to deal with.”
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