Mark Ruffalo opens up on decision to keep brain tumour ‘size of a golf ball’ secret from wife

'I couldn't tell Sunny'

The actor, who was nominated for an Oscar this week for his role in Poor Things, was told he had a brain tumour 'the size of a golf ball' back in 2000.

This came after he had a dream about being diagnosed with a brain tumour.

Appearing on an episode of the Smartless podcast, the 56-year-old opened up about the diagnosis with hosts Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Haynes.

He explained how he only went to get checked after having a dream that he had a brain tumour.

He said: "It was just like, 'You have a brain tumor.' It wasn't even a voice. It was just pure knowledge, 'You have a brain tumor, and you have to deal with it immediately,'" the actor said.

Ruffalo went to the doctor's for a scan, and remembered the nurse looking "kinda like a zombie" as she told him about the "golf ball-sized mass" they had discovered.

Luckily, the tumour was benign and was operable. There were still risks associated with the procedure though, and Ruffalo couldn't bring himself to tell his wife Sunrise Coigney about the health scare.

He said: "I couldn't tell Sunny. She had the birth plan, she did the yoga, she had the doula."

It was only after she had given birth to their first child, Keen, and the night before an appointment with a neurologist that the Hulk star told his wife about the tumour.

"When I told Sunny about it, first she thought I was joking. And then she just burst into tears and said, 'I always knew you were gonna die young,'" he recalled.

There was a 70 per cent chance that the operation would leave him deaf in his left ear, and a 20 per cent chance that he would lose sensation and movement in the left side of his face.

When he woke up from the operation, the left side of his face was indeed "totally paralysed" but this eventually subsided. However, he had been left "completely deaf in one ear.

Ruffalo said he can live with this though, as he his face was unharmed and he could "be a father to his kids."

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