The former ‘Entertainment Tonight’ co-host revealed in 2015 that he had been diagnosed with a rare form of prostate cancer

John Tesh in Los Angeles on Feb. 28, 2026.Credit : Michael Tullberg/Getty

John Tesh is reflecting on his cancer journey, a decade after doctors told him he might have only 18 months to live.

The former Entertainment Tonight co-host, 73, previously revealed in 2015 that he had been diagnosed with stage 3 prostate cancer. At the time, doctors believed that his tumors could be inoperable, and informed him that he may have only 18 months to live.

Now, in a new interview with Page Six, Tesh shared that he’s “still fighting it.”

“I was given 18 months to live. So, I’ve been fighting cancer successfully, still fighting it,” he said. “It’s still under treatment, on and off.”

The musician and TV presenter told the outlet that his “rare” form of prostate cancer is “metastatic now,” explaining that while he is never really in remission, his disease is “stable.” He admitted that’s a “frightening thought.”

John Tesh in 2020.Paul Archuleta/Getty

“They will let it grow for a little bit and then get me back on treatment, back and forth. It’s called pulsing, and it’s scary until you get used to it because it’s like, ‘Why am I living with cancer?’ ” he told Page Six.

Tesh credits his treatment and care at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, as well as the support of his wife of 34 years, Connie Sellecca, for keeping him alive amid his decade-long cancer journey.

“Without my wife Connie, who has been my advocate over the years, I wouldn’t be talking,” he told Page Six. “I’d be dead. I would have been dead in 2015.”

John Tesh and wife Connie Sellecca in 2015.Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic

In an interview with PEOPLE last year, Tesh revealed that it was Sellecca, 70, who helped lead him to MD Anderson after an MRI scan in 2017 showed that cancer had spread to the lymph nodes in his pelvis. The news came after Tesh had undergone a radical prostatectomy and thought the cancer might be behind him.

“She had met [these two friends] in New York when she was a model, like 52 years ago, and she kept in touch with them and so when I was at my wits’ end and couldn’t find the right treatment for this very rare form of prostate cancer, she contacted them and they said, ‘You gotta come here to MD Anderson,’ ” Tesh told PEOPLE.

While other hospitals he had visited were treating 50 to 100 cases like his, MD Anderson was treating more than 1,000 and “had more experience,” he said. And rather than just treating the cancer, he added, the facility and its physicians treat “the whole body.”

Tesh told PEOPLE that he feels he owes his life to the care he received at the cancer center.

“I shouldn’t even be alive now,” he said. “I’m really grateful. This is a great place right now — this minute to be grateful.”