Buble: My son’s cancer at 3 made me want to die
SINGER Michael Buble has revealed the devastating emotional impact on his family of his young son’s battle with liver cancer.
In a searing interview, the star said of the diagnosis when Noah was three: ‘You just want to die. I don’t even know how I was breathing.
‘My wife was the same and even though I was the stronger of the two of us, I wasn’t strong. My wife was … I’m sorry, I can’t make it to the end of that sentence.’
Buble, 43, and his wife, Argentinian actress Luisana Lopilato, 31, have two younger children: Elias, two, and 11-week-old Vida. The couple both put their careers on hold after Noah’s diagnosis in 2016.
Buble says he took the sting out of Noah’s treatment with humour, telling Daily Mail Weekend magazine: ‘I never called it the hospital, I called it the fun hotel. And every day I got extra bed sheets and I’d build a tent for Noah. I just made the best of it. Survival.’
With five-year-old Noah’s cancer now in remission, Buble says he is questioning everything about his life and is planning to quit his music career after the release of his new record, called Love.
‘Why are we here? Is this all there is? Because if this is all there is, there has to be something bigger,’ he said. ‘It’s been such a difficult exercise. It hurts me and it hurts me to talk about Noah because it’s not my story to tell, it’s his.
‘But my whole being’s changed. My perception of life. I don’t know if I can even get through this conversation without crying. And I’ve never lost control of my emotions in public.’ Buble has won four Grammys and sold 75million records. Before Noah’s illness, he said, he would worry about ticket sales, tours and how the public saw him, but now he has become ‘embarrassed by my ego’.
‘I decided I’ll never read my name again in print, never read a review, and I never have. I decided I’d never use social media again, and I never have,’ he added.
‘I don’t have the stomach for it any more. The celebrity narcissism. This is my last interview. I’m retiring … I’ve made the perfect record and now I can leave at the very top.’