LONDON: Actor-comedian Stephen Fry has announced that he underwent an operation in January to treat prostate cancer.
The 60-year-old actor, who stepped down last month as Bafta film awards presenter, shared details about his illness in a video on Twitter.
"For the last 2 months I've been in the throes of a rather unwelcome and unexpected adventure.
I'm sorry I haven't felt able to talk about it till now, but here I am explaining what has been going on," he wrote.
In the video, Fry described cancer as an "aggressive little bugger" but believed an early detection saved his life.
Fry said he discovered he had cancer after an MRI scan.
He had gone to the doctor for flu but a health check revealed that his prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels were high.
The actor was offered the choice of radiotherapy or having his prostate removed to treat cancer and he chose surgery.
"It doesn't seem to have spread, because what you don't want is to spread from one area to another, but one of the lymph nodes had something that called for active surveillance. It all seemed to go pretty well - they took the prostate out, they took out 11 lymph nodes. The various bits that were taken out were examined and it turned out I had a Gleason score of nine, and considering 10 is the maximum, it was clearly an aggressive little bugger," he said.
Fry said he decided to reveal his diagnosis as rumours had already started to spread.
"Cancer is a word that rings in your head. I've got cancer,' I kept saying to myself.
Good heavens. You're not supposed to get cancer. I know it's a cliche, but you don't think it's going to happen to you, cancer is something that happens to other people.
The actor said as far as he knows, he is cancer free now.
"But if there's anything left on the bed of the prostate where they've taken it out, it may have spread and I'll have to get radiotherapy and the whole damn thing will start again. But for the moment I'm fit and well and happy."
Fry said his doctors believe the early intervention saved his life, and urged "men of a certain age" to get their PSA levels checked.