Back in June, Blink-182 frontman Mark Hoppus shared the devastating news to the world that he had cancer, via his Instagram story. Now cancer-free, Hoppus went through six rounds of chemotherapy to combat stage 4 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a very aggressive type of blood cancer that his mother also successfully beat. Hoppus has been nothing short of an inspiration to fans and followers, sharing updates along the way during the course of his treatment, whether it was health updates, or playing bass on a livestream for the first time since he started chemo. But for all of the updates, he revealed in a new GQ interview, that he actually told his more than 1 million Instagram followers about his diagnosis by accident.
Woozy from the treatment he was undergoing, he told GQ that his fingers were clumsy and he posted a photo of himself in a chemotherapy chair with the caption “Yes, hello. One cancer treatment, please,” accidentally to all of his followers instead of using send to “close friends” function. “Maybe part of me subconsciously posted it to my main, but I definitely didn’t do it on purpose,” he told GQ. “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.”
The story itself, by Chris Gayomali, is a deeply honest picture of what Hoppus went through for the past five months and how his battle was nothing short of courageous. Hoppus talks about how re-visiting Blink-182’s “Adam’s Song” helped him get through some difficult days and maintain the will to keep fighting. There’s also a story about when he told Tom DeLonge about his diagnosis, seemingly by accident as well and then he, DeLonge and Travis Barker hung out together to talk about their lives and tribulations.
Hoppus also offers some nuggets about getting his first Epiphone guitar and how Blink-182’s breakthrough single, “Dammit,” was the first song he learned on it. And there’s some killer quotes about him [not] comparing Blink to the Beatles (“I would be Paul, Tom would be John, and Travis would be George.”) Matt Skiba is also featured in the story and reflects on how Tom Delonge must have felt when he took his place in the band. All in all, it’s a thorough portrait of Hoppus and his triumphant fight against cancer.
Read the GQ story in it’s entirety here.