Johnny Ruffo tells all amid second cancer battle
Johnny Ruffo wormed his way into majority of Australian hearts 10 years ago, when he stepped onto the X Factor Australia stage.
Quickly, he rose to national fame. He later signed to Sony Music, appearing on Dancing With With The Stars and supporting major bands like One Direction and NKOTBSB (New Kids On The Block and Backstreet Boys) for their Australian tours.
Johnny would then go on to join the cast of Home And Away in 2013 for what was supposed to be a 16-episode run, but turned into a three-year stint.
In 2017, Johnny would stun fans when he announced to Instagram that he had been rushed to hospital.
Doctors would reveal he had a brain tumour.
“He’d had headaches for probably like a week, on and off,” Tahnee, Johnny’s girlfriend, whom he met in 2013, told Denham Hitchcock.
“Then ... I think it was maybe a Sunday, and I was making boiled eggs in the kitchen and he was laying on the lounge ... he was trying to respond to me, but he was mixing up his words.”
She went on to explain: “I remember he was saying ‘put boil in the oiling water’, and then I went over to him and he was finding it hard to like string a sentence together, which was very odd.
“At this time, he still had these excruciating headaches, so I was like, ‘think we should head in, get checked out’.
“We were in the emergency waiting bays for probably eight hours, they were giving him drips and pain meds just trying to get the headaches under control.
“And then he was laying down and he sat straight up and just vomited all this brown stuff over himself,” Tahnee said.
“It was like black, almost,” Johnny added.
Johnny credits Tahnee for remaining supportive throughout his health battles, saying he “would not be here today without her.”
“The first time I went through all of this, if she hadn’t taken me to the hospital, I would’ve gone to bed that night and not woken up.”
Later that evening, Johnny revealed he’d slipped into a coma, unknown to his girlfriend who had been told to go home.
“I had a 7cm tumor in my right frontal lobe, which is more of less the size of my fist, and they had to operate immediately,” Johnny said.
Tahnee arrived at the hospital to find Johnny unconscious, in intensive care and being prepped for surgery.
“He had to go into surgery then and there, it wasn’t a question...so, (I) signed the papers, said a little goodbye, and then they wheeled him off.”
Johnny would emerge from the surgery with 27 staples in his head, and the makings of a massive scar. He’d soon learn his tumour was cancerous.
“They told me I have brain cancer and it was like, wow, my whole world just got flipped upside down,” Johnny told 7NEWS.
“And then they said ‘you have to have chemotherapy, you have to have radiotherapy, you’re going to lose your hair’... everything just came crashing down all at once.
“I didn’t cry, I was just blank.
“I didn’t know what to think, I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what to say. I was just like, all right, I guess we gotta do this now.”
Johnny revealed he’d had help from his co-star Lynne McGranger who supported him during his emotional battle.
“It was just a shock,” Lynne said.
“I knew that he’d been suffering bad headaches ... he’d only just recently been around to our place for a barbecue and Tahnee had to take him home, because he’d always suffered from migraines, and he was unwell and he didn’t really want to have a wine or anything, which was just not like Johnny.”
Johnny went into remission after gruelling chemotherapy, in 2019, saying it was the “greatest day of his life”.
Sadly, the good times would not last and in November 2020, he admitted to the world his cancer had returned.
“From memory, I had 11 seizures in four days, so I don’t remember a lot from those four days,” Johnny said while explaining his difficulties before he was re-diagnosed.
“He was, I would say semi-conscious for probably like nine days,” Tahnee added.
“There’s dark thoughts where I’m like, is this it? Is this where I say goodbye, in the bloody hospital after everything?
“So, those, those are, there’s definitely dark times - I’m not gonna lie.
“But, we remain positive because you have to. It’s not a choice.”
Johnny’s cancer is extremely rare, and accounts for less than 1 per cent of all brain tumours.
“When they told me the cancer was back, I was devastated,” Johnny said.
“I‘d already been through it, and for me it was just like ‘oh f***, I’ve gotta go through this s*** again’.”
Due to intense chemotherapy and a barrage of tests, Johnny has revealed there is still hope.
Doctors have told the loveable, cheeky star that his “spine’s all clear and the tumour in the right frontal lobe and the brain stem, all stable.”
While its no easy journey, Johnny says he couldn’t be “more thankful for the support.”