Dave Portnoy’s first reaction when he put on a large bandage around his neck where he had recently had a cancerous mole removed was in disbelief.
In his latest work “BFFs” podcastThe Barstool Sports founder, 47, spoke candidly about the aftermath of his skin cancer diagnosis, undergoing surgery which required 12 stitches on the left side of his neck and saying it “felt like I’d been stabbed.”
“I was about to get to the point where I was going to cut this wound open and bleed and somebody was going to say, ‘What’s going on?’ Because it’s a massive wound and nobody’s saying anything… It’s like I’ve been stabbed. How am I going to explain everything? Nobody… How am I going to get a video so nobody cares?” Portnoy said.
“… I’ve tried to force it on people,” Portnoy said. “I don’t want to say, ‘Oh, I have cancer, poor thing.’ … If you’re going to have cancer, that’s the best thing. [one]”…But I really just wanted sympathy.”
Elsewhere in the show, the Massachusetts native explained that he “never told anyone I was doing this,” and that “it was all part of my master plan.”
“God only knows that the Celtics will lose. [Game 5 of the NBA Finals to the Mavericks] “Last night I was going to say, ‘I have cancer and I don’t want to talk about it,'” he said.
“But they won. [106-88] Nobody talked about that. I did “The Rundown” with Dan. [Katz] Kevin [Clancy] And they said nothing about it, as if they knew I would call myself a cancer survivor.
“This is a really rough way of doing things. There are obviously more serious cancers out there, but I have the right to say “I’m a cancer survivor.”
Portnoy added that co-host Briana Chickenfry was the first to ask about his scars.
“Did you get skin cancer from being in the sun all day without sunscreen?” ChickenFry asked.
“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t go to the Celtics game. [the championship-clinching matchup in Boston on June 17]”No, I’m not scared. I’m definitely scared, but I’m not scared. I’ll add that to my list. I’ve had a heart attack, cancer, a bee sting and I’ve overcome them all,” Portnoy said.
“It’s hard to complain, because I was in the sun. It was a mole… I’m trying to calm myself down. So I went to the doctor and they scraped these things off my skin and it turned out one of them was cancerous so they had to remove it. I got 10 or 12 stitches… They cut it out completely.”
Portnoy announced the cancer news on “The Dozen Trivia” Wednesday night.
Portnoy also wrote on social media in response to X’s post, “I had cancer but I beat it. Thankfully it wasn’t serious. I’m not sure if Bosco thinks cancer is funny.”
