{"id":347387,"date":"2025-12-14T11:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T11:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/347387\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T11:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T11:39:09","slug":"jason-collins-first-openly-gay-active-nba-player-has-stage-4-brain-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/347387\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Collins, first openly gay active NBA player, has stage 4 brain cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NBA player Jason Collins has revealed he is battling stage 4 brain cancer.<\/p>\n

In an essay for ESPN<\/a>, the 47-year-old said he has been diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer.<\/p>\n

Collins said he began experiencing symptoms over the summer and later learned he has a tumor that cannot be safely removed. He has decided to undergo a combination of radiation, targeted chemotherapy and immunotherapy. <\/p>\n

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT | Michael Strahan’s daughter Isabella reveals she’s cancer-free 9 months after discovering brain tumor<\/a><\/p>\n

Still, the average prognosis for glioblastoma is 11 to 14 months.<\/p>\n

“If that’s all the time I have left, I’d rather spend it trying a course of treatment that might one day be a new standard of care for everyone,” Collins wrote. <\/p>\n

Collins said he wanted to share his diagnosis on his own terms \u2014 just as he did when he publicly came out as gay.<\/p>\n

RELATED STORY | Researchers project an 84% increase in cancer cases among men by 2050<\/a><\/p>\n

He made history in 2013 as the first openly gay active player in NBA history.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter I came out, someone I really respect told me that my choice to live openly could help someone who I might never meet,\u201d Collins wrote. \u201cI\u2019ve held onto that for years. And if I can do that again now, then that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins played 13 seasons in the NBA for seven teams, including the New Jersey Nets, Memphis Grizzlies and Boston Celtics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NBA player Jason Collins has revealed he is battling stage 4 brain cancer. In an essay for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-347387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}