Tyler Mane, the actor best known for playing Sabretooth in the 2000 blockbuster X-Men, has revealed he has been diagnosed with breast cancer — one of the rarest forms of the disease — and has begun chemotherapy, using his diagnosis to raise awareness of a condition that is rarely discussed in men and is frequently caught too late as a result.
The 59-year-old former World Championship Wrestling star shared the news in a video posted to Facebook on Tuesday, speaking directly to his followers as he prepared to start his first chemotherapy session. “I have some bad news. I start chemo today,” he said. “One in 750 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, and I’m one of them. Because it’s rarely talked about, it’s usually found at later stages and has worse outcomes. I want to change that.”
Mane, who also appeared as Michael Myers in Rob Zombie’s Halloween films, admitted his first instinct had been to keep the diagnosis private. “I’ll be honest, my first reaction was to keep it secret. I mean it’s kind of embarrassing. But then I found out that men are more likely to be diagnosed in advanced stages because it’s not talked about and not looked for,” he wrote in his post caption. He noted that only one per cent of all breast cancers occur in men, describing his own case as “super rare.”
In a particularly striking detail, Mane revealed that his doctors had initially dismissed his concerns — and that it was only his wife, Renae Geerlings, who pushed for further investigation that led to his early diagnosis. “My doctors all dismissed it and it was only because my wife pushed me to get the lump removed that I got in early,” he said.
He ended the video with a rallying message to followers, urging them to share the post widely. “If caught early, it’s very treatable. Time to answer the wake-up call. Let’s start talking about it.” He signed off with a defiant: “F**k cancer!”
