The Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood Quietly Battled Cancer Again Over Quarantine

The Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood has revealed that he was diagnosed with cancer a second time following a 2017 brush with lung cancer. The guitarist, who’s again “[come] through with the all-clear” health-wise, battled the disease during the pandemic-related quarantine.

It’s not been made public exactly where Wood’s latest malignancy was located, but the cancer was small-cell or carcinoma of the type often found in the lung and sometimes elsewhere in the body. Regardless, the guitarist appeared to be in good spirits now that he’s overcome the serious ailment an additional time.

“I’ve had cancer two different ways now,” the 73-year-old rocker shared with The Sun this week (April 25). “I had lung cancer in 2017, and I had small-cell more recently that I fought in the last lockdown.”

Wood has stayed upbeat thanks to his faith in a “higher power” — he wields it in much the same way he did when recovering from alcohol and substance abuse.

“I’m going through a lot of problems now,” Wood also shared with The Sun, “but throughout my recovery, you have to let it go. And when you hand the outcome over to your higher power, that is a magic thing. That brings you back to the (AA and NA’s) Serenity Prayer: ‘Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.’ That’s incredible. What will be will be, it’s nothing to do with me. All I can do is stay positive in my attitude, be strong and fight it, and the rest is up to my higher power.”

In the past, Wood attributed his lung cancer to the “25 to 30 cigarettes a day for 50-odd years” habit that he gave up in 2016. The musician also had to undergo an operation to remove part of his lung before he was declared cancer-free in that instance in 2018.