Former NBA star Jason Collins has been diagnosed with Stage 4 glioblastoma, per NBC News.
“A few months ago, my family released a short statement saying I had a brain tumor. It was simple, but intentionally vague. They did that to protect my privacy while I was mentally unable to speak for myself and my loved ones were trying to understand what we were dealing with,” Collins told the sports outlet.
“But now it’s time for people to hear directly from me. I have Stage 4 glioblastoma, one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer. It came on incredibly fast,” he continued.
What is glioblastoma?
According to MayoClinic, Glioblastoma is a type of cancer that starts as a growth of cells in the brain or spinal cord. It grows quickly and can invade and destroy healthy tissue.
Though there is no cure for glioblastoma, treatments might slow cancer growth and reduce symptoms.
“What makes it so difficult to treat in my case is that it’s surrounded by the brain and is encroaching upon the frontal lobe — which is what makes you, ‘you.,” Collins said.
Coming out with his story
Collins played for six teams across his 13-year NBA career. In 2013, he became the first active, openly gay player in NBA history. When he signed with the Brooklyn Nets in 2014, he was the first and only player to ever come out while still playing professional sports.
Collins said he went public with his diagnosis for the same reasons he came out as gay in 2013. “Your life is so much better when you just show up as your true self, unafraid to be your true self, in public or private. This is me. This is what I’m dealing with,” he said.
The former Celtics player hopes to be an inspiration to others by welcoming them into his fight against brain cancer. This courage to share his fight publicly made him the 2025 Outsports Male Hero of the Year.
The courage to fight his cancer
Using his grandmother as an example, Collins shared that he doesn’t believe that doctors always have the final say on survival timelines.
“She ended up outliving the doctor who gave her that prognosis.” He added, “So when a doctor says this is what your time frame is, in my mind already like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know there’s more in me. I know there’s more fight in me.’”
“While I was in the hospital, friends and family came to visit me to presumably say their goodbyes. At that point, no one knew if I’d ever come out of the fog I was in.”
Collins said he’s currently receiving treatment at a clinic in Singapore that offers targeted chemotherapy “using EDVs, a delivery mechanism that acts as a Trojan horse, seeking out proteins only found in glioblastomas to deliver its toxic payload past the blood-brain barrier and straight into my tumors.”
The goal, he said, “is to keep fighting the progress of the tumors long enough for a personalized immunotherapy to be made for me, and to keep