Charles Krauthammer, longtime columnist and Fox News commentator, has opened up and revealed that his cancer has returned and doctors have informed him he only has a few weeks left to live.
“This is the final verdict. My fight is over,” he wrote in a statement Friday.
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Krauthammer wrote that he has been recovering from a 2017 surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his abdomen, and while he has been “gradually making my way back to health,” recent tests showed that the disease had returned and it is aggressive and spreading rapidly.
“I wish to thank my doctors and caregivers, whose efforts have been magnificent. My dear friends, who have given me a lifetime of memories and whose support has sustained me through these difficult months. And all of my partners at The Washington Post, Fox News, and Crown Publishing,” he wrote.
“Lastly, I thank my colleagues, my readers, and my viewers, who have made my career possible and given consequence to my life’s work. I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking. I am grateful to have played a small role in the conversations that have helped guide this extraordinary nation’s destiny.”
Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman of Fox news and 21st Century Fox, said in a statement released by Variety that Krauthammer “has been a profound source of personal and intellectual inspiration for all of us at Fox News.”
“His always principled [stance] on the most important issues of our time has been a guiding star in an often turbulent world, a world that has too many superficial thinkers vulnerable to the ebb and flow of fashion, and a world that, unfortunately, has only one Charles Krauthammer. His words, his ideas, his dignity and his integrity will resonate within our society and within me for many, many years to come.”
Krauthammer, 68, has been a columnist at The Washington Post since 1984, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1987, but gained prominence for nightly commentary on Fox News. He also had stint at The New Republic and TIME.
Before pursuing a journalism career, he was a speechwriter for Vice President
Walter Mondale in 1980 and, before that, he had a career in medicine. He worked on psychiatric research for President Jimmy Carter’s administration, and practiced as chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was paralyzed from a diving accident during his first year at Harvard Medical School.
In his statement, Krauthammer wrote, “I leave this life with no regrets. It was a wonderful life – full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.”
