NBA legend Dwyane Wade teared up on Tuesday after opening up about his shocking cancer diagnosis in 2023.
The 43-year-old revealed on his podcast in January that he had 40 per cent of his kidney removed in December 2023, after initially suffering stomach issues and cramps and ultimately deciding to get a physical. He was ultimately operated on and a cancerous tumor was removed.
And while the former Miami Heat star has now declared himself cancer-free, he got emotional while on TODAY with Jenna & Friends.
‘No one has ever really experienced me being weak,’ Wade said Tuesday on the show, via People. ‘I’ve always been the strong one, the most confident one, the world champion that has lifted the trophies over his head. That’s the image, but this was a moment where I knew I was going to be uncertain and a little weak.’
Wade, whose father and grandfather have both been diagnosed with prostate cancer, said he felt a ‘pain that I had never felt before’ after emerging from surgery.
He also opened up about the unnerving process of meeting with doctors before he knew he had cancer.
Dwyane Wade got emotional after speaking about his previous cancer diagnosis on TODAY with Jenna & Friends
Wade, seen with his wife Gabrielle Union, had a portion of his kidney removed after doctors found a cancerous tumor
Wade is a three-time NBA champion and Olympic gold medalist after a glittering NBA career
‘I got a call from my doctor and in the midst of that call, you could just hear her uncertainty,’ he said. ‘They thought they saw something on my kidney. They were like, ‘Well, we don’t know if it’s cancerous, but there’s something on there.”
Wade said a different doctor’s visit also left him ‘scared’ when he told the basketball star he didn’t want what was on his kidney – which was not yet determined to be cancer – to spread.
It was later determined after the surgery that he had had Stage 1 cancer.
Wade, who has been married to his wife Gabrielle Union for 11 years, added that he was ‘most afraid of being that vulnerable’ in front of her.
‘It sounds crazy because those [his wife and their children] are supposed to be the ones you want to be there in those moments of weakness, but you don’t want them to see you in that space.’
Wade shares son Xavier, 11, with his ex, Basketball Wives alum Aja Metoyer. He was on a break with Union when the relationship with Aja began and their child was born in 2013.
He ultimately got back together with Union and they married in 2014. Their daughter Kaavia James, 6, was born in 2018. Wade also has son Zaire, 22, and daughter Zaya, 17, with his ex-wife Siovaughn Funches, and he is also the guardian of his nephew Dahveon Morris, 21.
Wade is a three-time NBA champion after a glittering career from 2003 to 2019 with the Miami Heat, Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers.
He also won an Olympic gold medal with the men’s US national team at Beijing 2008.
