Mark Hoppus went through 'dark time' after cancer diagnosis: 'I was due for something tragic'
Mark Hoppus opened up about his cancer journey, both the bad and some good, in an interview with GQ. The Blink-182 rocker was diagnosed with stage 4 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma earlier this year, but when he announced it to the world in June, it was an accident.
"Yes hello. One cancer treatment, please," Hoppus captioned a photo of himself undergoing chemotherapy. He meant to share it with his green "close friends" circle on Instagram but instead posted it for all his 1 million followers to see.
"Throughout the day as I'm getting chemotherapy and more bags of chemicals are being dripped into my body, other people are reaching out and they're like, 'Dude, what's going on?'" Hoppus recalled. He just had to get through the treatment before issuing a statement, explaining "Chemo is like being on the worst international, overnight flight where you can't sleep or get comfortable."
Hoppus first thought something was wrong last spring when he felt a weird knot in his shoulder. He got it checked out a few days before meeting with a new therapist. The musician was suffering from a dark bout of depression amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"So I walk into the therapist's office and I'm like, 'Oh, hello. How are you doing? Very nice to meet you. Thanks for making the time — hang on a second. I have to take this call,'" Hoppus remembered.
When he picked up the phone it was his doctor who informed him he had lymphoma. Hoppus had to start chemotherapy right away.
"And I was like, 'OK, cool. Thank you very much.' I hang up the phone and turn to [the therapist]. 'Oh, hi. So, yeah, I have cancer. Where do we start?'" Hoppus said, adding, "I had a really dark time after finding out.
Hoppus, who is now in remission, continued, "I went through this whole period of like, not why me, but of course me. Why wouldn't it be me? We've had so much good luck and good fortune, and things have kind of fallen into place for me specifically for so long, that of course I was due. I was due for something tragic."
One of the worst parts of chemotherapy for Hoppus was the "bad" brain fog he experienced. "I felt so s*****," he explained. "The chemo brain is just heartbreaking to me because I can feel myself diminished mentally right now."
That's why the Instagram slip-up bothered him at first.
"Maybe part of me subconsciously posted it to my main, but I definitely didn't do it on purpose," he added. "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."
One person Hoppus was honest with about his diagnosis was former Blink-182 guitarist, Tom DeLonge. In 2015, DeLonge abruptly left the band after two decades. Matt Skiba replaced the band's co-founder, joining Hoppus and Travis Barker. Hoppus texted Barker and Skiba the day he found out about his diagnosis. DeLonge happened to reach out to Hoppus weeks later and they ultimately met up.
DeLonge stopped by Hoppus's house when, unknowingly, Barker stopped by. The three men sat and talked for hours about "life stuff."
"What we've learned over the years about ourselves. How we've grown, how nothing really matters when it boils down to what we were dealing with in that moment," DeLonge recalled. “And so, it wasn't some big meeting about Blink-182, it was more about brothers meeting and saying, 'How do we support Mark?'"
DeLonge recently told People he and Hoppus have been able to "completely repair" their friendship.
WATCH: Mark Hoppus has surgery to remove chemo port after cancer battle:
