Ninja, one of the most popular video game streamers on Twitch and YouTube, has announced he has cancer.
The social media star, whose real name is Tyler Blevins, revealed his diagnosis on X Tuesday evening.
Blevins, 32, said he’s “still in a bit of shock” about the news, which he received shortly after a routine dermatologist appointment to check for moles.
“A few weeks ago I went in to a dermatologist for an annual skin/mole check that [my wife] Jess proactively scheduled for me. There was a mole on the bottom of my foot that they wanted to remove just to be careful. It came back as melanoma, but they are optimistic that we caught it in the early stages,” he wrote.
The professional “Fortnite” player, who has nearly 24 million subscribers on YouTube and another 19 million on Twitch, added that another area was removed for a biopsy, for which he is still awaiting results.
“I’m grateful to have hope in finding this early, but please take this as a PSA to get skin checkups,” he added.
Skin cancer is the most-common type of cancer in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 6.1 million adults are treated for it every year.
Melanoma is more rare, but accounts for the most deaths because it’s more likely to spread to other parts of the body.
Earlier this month, fitness guru Richard Simmons announced he had been diagnosed with skin cancer.