Mark Hoppus, the bassist and vocalist with US pop-punk band Blink-182, has announced that he is cancer-free, six months after he began chemotherapy for stage-four lymphoma.
Hoppus posted a message on Instagram saying that his oncologist had given him the news. “It’ll take me until the end of the year to get back to normal,” he wrote, “but today is an amazing day and I feel so blessed.”
He had recently tweeted in anticipation of finding out whether he would be given the all-clear, noting his increased energy and mood.
Hoppus documented his chemotherapy treatment – “Everything about chemo sucks except the part where it hopefully saves my life.” he tweeted earlier this summer – asking fellow cancer patients whether they could still “smell the chemo” weeks after treatment, and remarking on its visceral nature.
“Sometimes when the effects of the chemo are strong and the steroids are overwhelming, and my heart races, I feel like I can HEAR the valves in my veins opening and slamming shut with each heartbeat,” he wrote on 8 August.
Hoppus documented his cultivation of a cactus garden, opting for “mutated varieties because I feel connected to them through my own cells’ mutation. I sit here in the morning with them, drinking my coffee, and we’re like ‘well this is weird…’” He also shared photographs of his hair regrowth.
Hoppus formed Blink-182 with vocalist-guitarist Tom DeLonge and drummer Scott Rayner in the mid-1990s, releasing their debut album, Cheshire Cat, in 1995. After drummer Travis Barker replaced Raynor, they released Enema of the State in 1999, a landmark pop-punk album featuring hit singles What’s My Age Again? and All the Small Things.
The band have released five further albums since, all of which have reached the US Top 3. In 2019, Hoppus launched new project Simple Creatures, a duo with Alex Gaskarth of rock band All Time Low.
Hoppus’s bandmate Travis Barker responded to his all-clear: “Best news brother!”
