Mark Hoppus says accidentally posting about his cancer diagnosis was “the best mistake I’ve ever made, by far”

Mark Hoppus has reflected on the moment he accidentally went public with the news he had cancer.

Thinking he was simply sending a private photo to his family WhatsApp chat, the blink-182 bassist mistakenly posted a pic of himself undergoing chemo in the summer of 2021 to his Instagram – with the news then of course spreading like wildfire, and Mark having to make a public statement about what he had been going through for the past few months.

Now, in a new interview with The Guardian, he says it ended up being “the best mistake I’ve ever made, by far”, because he had “suffered alone in silence for so long because I thought that, once it came out I had cancer, people’s opinions of me would change. Just generally in life, I felt that when people get sick or injured in some way they get left behind, like: ‘Okay, you’re over here now in a different category.’ But I was wrong.”

The pop-punk legend adds that he received “gifts, kind thoughts, people sending whatever”, and found fans online who had been through similar battles: “All these people who were fighters and winners, who overcame their cancer. That helped. I was finally able to say: ‘Yeah. I’m fucking scared, but, you know, I try to put on a brave face.’”

Putting another positive spin on things, Mark also details how his friendship with then-former blink-182 bandmate Tom DeLonge started to mend.

“The physical pain and exhaustion of the chemo, mixed with the steroids and all the other drugs, just crushed me for months on end,” he shares. “But it brought back friendships that I hadn’t had in years. It healed my friendship with Tom: from day one, he was like: ‘What do you need? I’m there.’ In that friendship and the love and support of people around me, I thought: you know what? I’ve had a pretty awesome life.”

In September 2021 Mark confirmed that he was “cancer free”, and thanked “God and universe and friends and family and everyone who sent support and kindness and love”.

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