Martin Kemp told his son Roman that his previous brain tumor diagnoses left him “resigned to the fact that he was going to die”.
The Spandau Ballet bassist, 62, was diagnosed with two brain tumors in the 1990s and had to undergo radiotherapy and surgery to remove them.
While the benign growths were successfully removed and did not reappear, Martin continued to battle epilepsy as a side effect.
Speaking on the first episode of his and Roman’s podcast. FFS! My dad is Martin Kempaptly titled Death, Martin and Roman, 31, were candid about the topic.
At one point, Roman asked Martin how much longer he thinks he’ll be alive. Martin replies: “I’ll be very honest with you, 10 years.”
Martin Kemp, 62, told his son Roman, 31, that his previous brain tumor diagnoses left him “resigned to the fact that he was going to die” and predicts he has 10 years to live.
Speaking on the first episode of his and Roman’s FFS podcast. My dad is Martin Kemp, aptly titled Death, Martin and Roman, 31, (pictured) were candid about the subject.
The duo’s podcast: FFS! My Dad Is Martin Kemp – Released on May 1st and aims to capture some of the daily conversations and jokes the two share.
Martin explained: “I don’t know how much time I have left, but I will tell you that since I was 34, when I went through that whole brain tumor scare, I spent two years of my life thinking I was going to die.
‘And I think, after that, everything else, every day, every year, every month I’ve lived, every experience I’ve had has been an advantage.
“I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I was going to die, but I was very happy with my lot, because I had had the most incredible experiences.”
Martín reiterated: ‘When I was 34 years old and I thought I was going to die, I spent two years thinking about it, I was quite happy, I thought: ‘If I leave, you know what? What a life, and that was back then. “So every year I live, every month I’m alive now is like a bonus.”
The star revealed that in the midst of his recovery, when he was still struggling with his brain function, EastEnders approached him with the role of Steve Owen.
Martín recalled in the Dish podcast in 2022: ‘Everyone around me was like, “Don’t do it, don’t do it. It’s going to ruin your career, don’t do it.”
‘Well, because they haven’t had any well-known actors on that show before, right? “Everyone had grown up with EastEnders, so I was the first of those famous actors to take part.”
Explaining his hesitation, Martin said, “My brain was still not working properly because of the operation.” To the point that sometimes if he wanted to walk to the left he would walk to the right, or like he couldn’t think about putting things in order, or anything like that.
‘The lines of learning were very there. When I was offered EastEnders it was a chance to get over it, so it wasn’t just me taking EastEnders because I thought yeah, it was a good job, but it was me trying to get my life back together.
As fans of the soap will know, Martin was successful – his villainous character’s run from 1998 to 2002 is still highly regarded today.
FFS! My Dad Is Martin Kemp streams on all podcast streaming services on Mondays and YouTube on Saturdays.
Martin accepted his now infamous role as Steve Owen in EastEnders when he was at the height of his battle with epilepsy following tumors (with his on-screen wife Tamzin Outhwaite in 1998).
