Duran Duran fame Andy Taylor issues health update after stage 4 cancer diagnosis

Eight months after ex-Duran Duran member Andy Taylor revealed that he was diagnosed with stage four metastatic prostate cancer, he shared some hopeful news. Taylor exited the band in 2006 when guitarist Dom Brown took over as the guitarist.

Guitarist Taylor, 62, was diagnosed with cancer in 2018 but made a public announcement when he was unable to attend Duran Duran’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November 2022. Since then, he revealed that his father passed away due to prostate cancer.

Earlier this year, he told People magazine: “As harsh as it is, it’s a death sentence. So you sort of walk out of the hospital in a stunned silence, because you could never be prepared for ... you’ve got to start from the fact that it’s a slow burn, so it’s not going to take you quickly.”

During his battle with cancer, the two things that have kept him going are his music and his wife - whom he met at the Rum Runner Club in Birmingham on her 20th birthday in 1981.

He told People magazine: “I’ve been married for 40,000 years. I’m old school. Maybe I’ve just seen so many of my friends have four divorces that I kind of always thought it was worth working it out. I think if there was a tolerance meter for a lady who’s lived right in the thick of it since 1980... Yeah, there should be an award for women who’ve survived rock and roll.”

They share four children called Izzy, Bethy, Andy and Georgie - and Taylor is a grandfather now. He said: “I’ve got a grandson now, which I didn’t know if I’d live to see his 10th birthday, but I’m pretty sure I’m good.”

The guitarist, who left Duran Duran twice during his career, shared a new update about his health recently on the Rockonteurs with Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt podcast.

He said: “I’m starting my nuclear therapy. I’ve been having tests and scans and all kinds of far out science stuff. I have got a wonky gene as well, which was another surprise, but what it is, it’s a nuclear medicine, so the stage I’m at, which was stage four like s*** basically, this therapy came into the UK only recently. It’s very, very new.

“And essentially it’s a nuclear medicine. It’s put into your body and it detects the cancer on the outside of the cells and it only hits cancer cells in your bones, which is mainly where it is with me, and zaps them. But if there’s a healthy cell next to it, it doesn’t touch it. So it’s not curative, but it can knock out and then it’s got to start again and from what was kind of - I’ll not even say the term they used to have on the thing - but I can get back full fitness. I’ll be fine for five years.”