New York Dolls frontman David Johansen has revealed he is living with stage 4 cancer and a brain tumor.
The pioneering punk musician’s daughter, Leah Hennessey, has launched a fundraising site to help pay for his treatment and care.
On the site, Hennessey says Johansen has been receiving intensive cancer treatment for “most of the last decade.” In 2020, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which has caused further complications. Last November, he fell down stairs and broke his back in two places.
In a statement shared by Brooklyn Vegan, Johansen said: “We’ve been living with my illness for a long time, still having fun, seeing friends and family, carrying on, but this tumble the day after Thanksgiving really brought us to a whole new level of debilitation.
“This is the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. I’ve never been one to ask for help, but this is an emergency. Thank you.”
The site is seeking to raise funds to pay for full-time nursing, physical therapy and day-to-day living expenses.
Hennessey writes that Johansen had previously chosen to keep his diagnosis private, but is now facing an emergency situation as his fall has left him bedridden and incapacitated.
“He’s never made his diagnosis public, as he and my mother Mara are generally very private people, but we feel compelled to share this now, due to the increasingly severe financial burden our family is facing,” says Hennessey.
“Due to the trauma, David’s illness has progressed exponentially and my mother is caring for him around the clock. To continue his treatment and give him the best chance of recovery, David and Mara will need full time assistance. As hilarious and wise as David continues to be, he is physically debilitated and his care exceeds what we are capable of providing without specialized professional help.”
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Johansen was a member of the proto-punk band New York Dolls from 1971. They released their debut album in 1973. He later led his own group, the David Johansen Band, before reinventing himself in the 1980s under the pseudonym Buster Poindexter. He is also well known for playing the Ghost of Christmas Past in the 1988 Bill Murray comedy Scrooged.
In 2023 he was the subject of Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s documentary Personality Crisis: One Night Only, which featured a live Johansen performance filmed at Café Carlyle in New York City.
He has been married to the artist Mara Hennessey since 2013.
