Richard Herring reveals incurable hairy cell leukaemia at 58
Richard Herring said he has cancer again, and this time the 58-year-old comedian is dealing with incurable hairy cell leukaemia. He said the disease is blood cancer rather than testicular cancer, and that he has already started his first day of chemotherapy under the NHS.
“I have cancer again. Not ball cancer this time, I can’t afford to lose another one of those (though I will be doing my show The Male Eunuch if it does happen),” Herring wrote in his Substack post. He added: “This time I have blood cancer. And God is determined to make sure I get the funniest cancers possible and this one is called hairy cell leukaemia.”
Herring’s 2021 diagnosis
In 2021, Herring was diagnosed with testicular cancer, making this his second cancer diagnosis. He said the latest illness is treatable even though it is incurable, and that he does not expect it to kill him. The practical reality for him is immediate: treatment has begun, and the first day brought no immediate problems.
“The other bad news is that it is incurable,” he wrote. “The treatment has a tiny chance of killing me, but so has loading the dishwasher, so don’t worry about it.”
Bone marrow cells 12 years ago
About 12 years ago, doctors found a few of the cells in his bone marrow. Herring said the condition did not worsen over five years of testing, and a doctor told him it was probably going to be OK. That earlier warning now reads differently, because the same condition has surfaced as a formal blood cancer diagnosis.
“They found a few of the cells in my bone marrow about 12 years ago, but it didn’t get any worse and after five years of being tested, the doctor said it was probably going to be OK,” he wrote.
Hairy cell leukaemia
Hairy cell leukaemia is described in the source as a rare type of chronic leukaemia, and more than 90 per cent of people in England survive five years or more after being diagnosed, according to Cancer Research. Herring’s case sits inside that range: serious enough to change his routine, but not presented by him as a terminal diagnosis.
He said he can use the diagnosis to avoid other people’s podcasts and social events he does not want to attend, but the more important point is the one he buried in the joke: “I just won’t mention that fact that it’s treatable.” That combination — incurable, but treatable — is the part readers should hold onto.
