Duran Duran’s Andy Taylor: King Charles has given a voice to all us cancer sufferers

The famed guitarist has been undergoing treatment for stage 4 prostate cancer since his diagnosis was announced in November 2022. Here, in a moving and heartfelt letter, Andy Taylor reflects on the extraordinary impact the announcement from Buckingham Palace has had on him and how it connects to his own experience

Taylor playing a benefit concert for the Cancer Awareness Trust in October 2023 (HW Media)

After somewhat of a public reckoning with an advanced stage of prostate cancer, which forced me to miss Duran’s induction into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in November 2022, my dear friend, the music executive Merck Mercuriadis, said to me: “Try not to worry, you’ll feel differently once it’s public, your world won’t seem such a lonely place, people really do care.” He was right.

I vividly remember the day – five and a half years ago – when the results of my biopsy were revealed to me. The news was not good, within a millisecond our world turned upside down, not unlike when my father first told me of his cancer diagnosis. I could barely speak and he died aged just 67 in 2005.

Whatever kind of life you had prior to being diagnosed, the shuddering fear of the unknown, the magnitude of aftershocks, just from hearing those few words, “I’m so sorry, but you have an advanced form of cancer” is terrifying. Whatever privilege or position you may hold, however powerful or infamous you are or may have become, it is the most humbling of challenges, an experience I would wish upon no one.