Actor Edward James Olmos said during a podcast on Friday that he had a recent struggle with throat cancer, CNN reported.
“This would be the first time publicly I’ll be coming out and saying it, but I had throat cancer,” Olmos, 76, said on the Mando & Friends podcast on Friday.
“I just finished getting through it. December 20 was my last radiation. The week before, I’d finished my chemo and (for) months and months I was on radiation and chemo as it attacked my throat.”
According to Olmos, his doctors “shot” radiation into his vocal cords telling him they did not know how the Oscar-nominated actor would sound like after the treatment.
“I said, ‘What?!’” Olmos recalled. The actor has voiced several animated characters, including the character of Chicharron in the animated movie “Coco.”
“We’re shooting your vocal cords, we’re shooting your throat; where you eat, where you swallow, where you talk, breathe, everything goes through here,” he said, later adding, “A lot of my friends have passed because of this.”
Olmos said he lost 55 pounds during his treatment.
“There were times in the months that I was undergoing the treatments that the body gives up,” Olmos shared. “And I didn’t want to take my food through my stomach. They wanted to put tubes in and feed me nutrients because I couldn’t swallow. They had to get 2,500 calories into my body every day. That was ridiculous, that was so hard.”
Olmos has been in numerous television shows and movies. He was nominated for an Oscar for his role in “Stand and Deliver,” and played Tejano singer Selena’s father in “Selena.”