Fears for Val Kilmer’s health are mounting once again after the actor dropped out of a series of events at the last minute, offering vague excuses for his absence.
Kilmer — who finally admitted to having cancer in April after a year of denials — missed appearances at Comic Con in Tampa Bay, Fla., in late July, citing on Twitter, “Family stuff that’s got to be my priority.” Confirming the news, Tampa Bay Comic Con called Kilmer’s change of plans “certainly very last minute for a cancellation.”
Now we’re told that he also dropped out of the opening of his own art exhibition, “Icon Go On, I’ll Go On,” in Los Angeles on July 20, saying that he was “delayed on a project.” A rep for Kilmer didn’t get back to us.
In October, during a Q&A, Michael Douglas, Kilmer’s co-star in the 1996 movie “Ghost and the Darkness,” said that “Val was a wonderful guy who is dealing with exactly what I had [mouth cancer], and things don’t look too good for him . . . That’s why you haven’t heard too much from Val lately.”
But Kilmer posted on Facebook two days later, saying Douglas was “misinformed,” and explained, “Almost two years ago . . . I asked him for a referral for a specialist to get a diagnosis for a lump in my throat.” Kilmer then insisted he has “no cancer whatsoever.” Kilmer later claimed that Douglas had apologized for the remarks.
But during a Reddit AMA Q&A session in April, when asked about Douglas’ claim, Kilmer admitted that “he was probably trying to help me ‘cause press probably asked where I was these days, and I did have a healing of cancer but my tongue is still swollen altho [sic] healing all the time. Because I don’t sound my normal self yet people think I may still be under the weather.”
Coincidentally, Douglas himself admitted in 2013 to lying about cancer. Douglas discovered before a press tour for “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” that he had tongue cancer, but told the public he had throat cancer because the prognosis for tongue cancer wasn’t “pretty.”