Chris Holmes says hormonal therapy has left him severely unwell, and thanks donors to his cancer treatment fund.
Chris Holmes has posted a video update on his treatment for prostate cancer, thanking those who have contributed to the fundraiser covering his medical costs and asking for help closing the remaining gap. The former W.A.S.P. guitarist, who is 68 and has lived in Cannes since 2014, described the last two weeks as among the worst he has experienced.
Holmes said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth):
“Hey everybody. It’s Chris Holmes here. I would like to take this moment to thank everybody… I’d like to thank everybody who’s donated to my GoFundMe very, very, very much. It’s helped me. It’s actually given me a prolonged lease on life , ’cause it’s helped me through my cancer thing. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I couldn’t get the money to help me through this. I could’ve got the radiation. I don’t know if I’d have finished whatever. I just wouldn’t have the money. But I appreciate everybody who’s helping me more than you ever… And in the next, depending how long I last, and when you ever see me here and there, come up and tell me you donated to me, I’ll give you the biggest f**king hug you’ll ever imagine. I’ll give you the shirt off my back, okay?”
He continued: “I’d like to know if you could still help promote the GoFundMe, ’cause I haven’t reached the goal that we’ve been looking for. We’re about 20% [away from reaching the goal] — we’ve made 80% of it, [with] about 20% to go. I’d appreciate it if you help promote it on your websites or whatever. If you could keep pushing it. It gave me a little bit of lease on life. It’s helped me get to pay for all the things I need to do. I take this stuff called hormonal therapy, [which] makes me really sick. The last two weeks I just went through probably one of the most sickest times I’ve ever been in my life. I thought the throat cancer was bad when on chemo, but something happened in my — not my, after my stomach, my gizzards, I lost all the good and bad bacteria that’s in there because of radiation. And then when I drink water, it just went straight from my stomach right out my rear end. I could’ve sat on the toilet and drank it, and you could just put a cup under my butt and it would’ve just filled right back up. It was sad. Dysentery would’ve been beautiful to have.”
He closed: “But I’d like to thank everybody who’s put money in this. From the deepest of my heart, it’s helped me to get through this, all right? I love you very much. Please help promote this just a little bit more so I can maybe make the whole 100% of the goal. We got 20% more, okay? Thank you very much, and I love you for it, okay?”
This is the second cancer diagnosis Holmes has faced in five years. He was treated for throat and neck cancer around four years ago, which he references in the video.
“The treatment is essential and cannot be interrupted,” his wife Catherine wrote in the GoFundMe campaign description. “Because of an administrative error linked to our marriage registration, the health insurance system placed Chris under ’emergency only’ coverage.” As a result, she said, Holmes “was forced to wait three months before receiving any care at all, and only the radiotherapy given during the month of July is covered.” Everything else — from hormone therapy, scans and PET scans to biopsies, blood tests and the daily trips to and from the hospital — has fallen to the couple. “Everything else falls to us,” she added.
The costs have piled up quickly. Catherine revealed that the couple is now sitting on “€20,000 in medical debt,” with “treatment ahead” set to “keep adding to it every month.” Compounding the problem, Holmes has no way to earn while he’s being treated: “Chris must remain in France to receive radiotherapy. Leaving the country would risk his emergency status lapsing, so he cannot travel and therefore cannot work,” she explained. “Chris has given everything to his music and to the people who listen to it. It is his whole life. Today we cannot carry this alone.”
While thanking France for “granting the emergency coverage that allowed Chris to begin radiotherapy,” Catherine asked, “humbly, for help covering everything else.”
Sadly, this is not Holmes‘s first health crisis in recent years. In February 2022, he was diagnosed with throat and neck cancer and stepped away from touring for treatment, completing seven weeks of radiation before sharing with fans five months later that his cancer was “gone.” There were early signs of the current situation, too: this past April, Holmes scrapped a planned May 2026 tour of the U.K. and Scandinavia. At the time, after his show at Gothenburg’s The Abyss club was pulled over “health issues that require immediate attention,” Catherine described it as a “minor prostate issue” that was “already being taken care of,” expressing hope he’d be “back on his feet and on stage soon.”
Holmes remains one of the most important figures in W.A.S.P.‘s history. He joined the Los Angeles band in 1983 and became its lead guitarist during its classic era, lending his ferocious playing to a run of defining records, the self-titled debut W.A.S.P. (1984), The Last Command (1985), Inside The Electric Circus (1986) and The Headless Children (1989). He remained with the group until 1990, returned for a second stint from 1996 to 2001, and has pursued his own projects and solo career since. His guitar work was central to the sound that carried W.A.S.P. to prominence.
The fundraiser remains open and, by his own account, stands at 80 per cent of its target.
