Steven Patrick Morrisey, the singer who formerly led The Smiths and is now on a solo tour in Europe, has undergone treatment for cancer, he tells a Spanish newspaper. Morrisey did not specify what ailment he had been suffering from, saying only that he had undergone "cancer scrapings."
The singer, 55, was asked about his health in an interview for Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
"I have had four cancer-scrapings, but so what. If I die, I die," he wrote in the email interview, according to a translation by the BBC. "If I don't, then I don't. As I sit here today I feel very well."
In June, more than a dozen dates on Morrisey's recent U.S. tour were canceled over his health.
Morrisey told El Mundo journalist Javier Blanquez that he understood concerns that have been raised about his appearance, as fans worried over his health:
"I know I look quite bad on recent photographs, but I am afraid this is what illness does to the overall countenance. I will save relaxation for when I'm dead."
In the interview, Morrisey spoke about the novel that he's writing (he published another book, Autobiography, last year). And while he didn't dwell on the ramifications of his cancer treatment, he did take a question about his reputation for being a very self-sufficient person. Here's what he said:
"I have no social life, I don't need it. I'm happy in quiet solitude. Fun is an artificial construct, and if you don't have a sex life (and I have none at all) it is impossible to deal with people, because people only talk about sex. If you don't have a partner, people look at you suspiciously."
When asked if he found anyone particularly odious and useless in the world, Morrisey said, "I do not hate people, I am a loving and sensible man, but I can not stand David and Victoria Beckham."
He said that the "tragic importance" that's been given to that couple's lives by the British media "has converted us into a nation of zombies."
Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
