Ryan Seacrest can’t hold back how worried he is about his father.
During the Monday, July 21, episode of “On Air with Ryan Seacrest,”, the show’s host shared an emotional update on his dad, Gary Lee Seacrest, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer “years ago.”
“So my dad is about 80 years old and I have a very close relationship with my father. And my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer years ago and started his treatment. And he, it didn’t get better. It got worse and it spread. It didn’t go well for him,” Ryan, 50, told listeners, adding that he kept his father’s diagnosis “very private” before feeling compelled to speak about it publicly.
Ryan, 50, noted that he has kept the news of his dad’s health “very private” but felt compelled to speak on the air after recent events.
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“I was on an American Idol show live during last season and my sister called me and she said, ‘Dad is in the ICU. How fast can you get here?'” he continued, revealing that his father had contracted pneumonia. “I finished the show. We were almost done. I couldn’t, I couldn’t even, I didn’t even remember what I was saying was on the show. It was like robotic at that point.”
Ryan immediately flew to Atlanta, where he soon realized his dad’s health was dire.
“The night that I got there, the conversation they were having with him about an emergency surgery was a life or death conversation,” he explained. “And I’ve never seen my strong, very smart father with the look on his face that he had and the concern and looking at me to help guide what decisions should be made in this moment. And this is ICU. With pneumonia, with the cancer, after the chemo.”
Gary Lee was unable to eat, drink water, or go to the bathroom on his own, but “finally he “began to get some strength back.
“My mother was in Atlanta, but you know, she, I needed her to take a break from this because she also has cancer. And she’s in remission. God bless her,” Ryan continued.
He started going back and forth to visit both of his parents, adding that his dad hasn’t left the “hospital or home for four and a half months.”
“His birthday is in a few days. And I asked him. First of all, to see him getting strong, I was just so happy. And I asked him, ‘What would you like for your birthday?'” Ryan shared. “And of course he said, “I just want to get out of this chair. I just want to leave this house.’ And so last night I got the most powerful… the most powerful, good, happy picture from my dad and my mother, who was with him. They went to a beach to sit outside. They just want to look at the water. They can’t do much.”
A tearful Ryan paused to gather himself before continuing.
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“So anyway, I watched them over the weekends send photos of smiling and happiness and being together – they’ve been married for 55 years. And they’ve got each other, and his pneumonia is gone, but his cancer is not, and so we have to go back into another treatment and fight this cancer. And it is, it is just, it’s difficult. Cancer affects every one of us in some way. And it… then it sucks. The treatments suck,” he said.
“I know he’s going to get through this. You know, we were worried about flying and everything, he had to take oxygen on the plane,” Seacrest said. “Thank God he made it. And they’re just happy to sit together looking at an ocean. And I just, I want to share that because I’ve been holding that in for a long time.”
