“Riverdance” creator Michael Flatley is battling an “aggressive form of cancer,” his team announced.
Flatley, a veteran Irish dancer who’s starred in numerous stage productions, hasn’t personally commented on the diagnosis.
“He has undergone surgery and is in the care of an excellent team of doctors,” his team wrote Wednesday on Instagram. “No further comments will be made at this time. We ask only for your prayers and well wishes.”
Known as the Lord of the Dance, the Irish American Flatley created and starred in the first “Riverdance” performance for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994.
The popular segment grew into a full-length stage show and has been touring since 1995, with performances scheduled throughout the U.S. this year.
Flatley also starred in the shows “Lord of the Dance” and “Feet of Flames” before retiring from dancing in 2016.
“People don’t realize how brutal it actually is,” Flatlely told The Washington Post that year. “I know a lot of professional athletes and we trade horror stories about the legs and the feet and the backs and the necks. And I think I got the worst of it!”
Flatley was diagnosed with skin cancer nearly two decades ago, he revealed to the Sunday Independent in 2021.
“It was a malignant melanoma that I was diagnosed with,” Flately told the Irish newspaper at the time. “It was around 2003 and it was purely by chance that it was noticed.”
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