Op 26e december, twee dagen voor zijn dood, werd Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister ’twee tot zes maanden te leven’ gegeven. Op tweede Kerstdag werd hem verteld dat hij terminale kanker had.
Bandmanager Todd Singerman heeft aan Sky News verteld dat Lemmy twee dagen na zijn 70e verjaardagsfeest, in de Whisky A Go Go club in Hollywood, California, naar ging omdat hij zich niet goed voelde. Hoewel de artsen in eerste instantie zeide dat hij in orde was, besloten ze toch om een hersenscan te doen, omdat hij zich een beetje vreemd gedroeg. Ze wilden zien of hij misschien een kleine beroerte had gehad. De scan ontdekte echter tumoren in Lemmy’s hersenen en nek.
Singerman vertelde op de dag van overlijden: “Nobody had any idea, we just learned Saturday, two days ago, that he even had cancer, and the doctor told him he had between two to six months to live. He died today as I was making calls to his bandmates Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee, telling them to come on out so they could have a last goodbye while he was still upbeat and everything. He was feeling mighty low… He wasn’t expected to die like that.”
“Lemmy gets home from tour, we have a big birthday party for him at the Whisky A Go Go”, Singerman continued, “His friends came down and played. Two days later, I could tell he wasn’t feeling good, so we took him to the hospital, they release him, then after the brain scan they found the cancer in his brain and his neck… The doctor comes with the result a couple of days later and says… it’s terminal.”
De manager vertelde aan RollingStone.com dat Lemmy reageerde zoals alleen hij dat kan: “He took it better than all of us, his only comment was, ‘Oh, only two months, huh?’ The doctor goes, ‘Yeah, Lem, I don’t want to bullshit you. It’s bad, and there’s nothing anyone can do. I would be lying to you if I told you there was a chance.'”
Singerman wilde de diagnose in eerste instantie privé houden en alleen bekend maken dat Lemmy ernstig ziek en met rust gelaten moest worden. “He was like, ‘No, no. You go ahead and put out a press release. I want people to know it was cancer. It’s a bad thing and they should know it.’ That’s how he felt.”
Ondanks Lemmy’s goed beschreven gezondheidsproblemen in de afgelopen twee jaar, verklaarde Singerman dat de diagnose kanker als een verrassing kwam. “Cancer was the last thing we thought he would ever have. When you think about it, he has been to every doctor and hospital around the world and nobody caught that… That comes as a massive shock.”
Singerman zei dat Lemmy’s levensstijl anders was dan die van alle andere rockers. “I’ve been with him almost 25 years, and it was a half gallon of Jack Daniels a day, two-three packs of cigarettes and his other little favorites and that was a daily thing. Recently he switched over — and I still can’t grasp it but he thought it was healthier — he switched over to vodka and orange. I still always remember a great quote: ‘Lemmy from Motorhead makes Keith Richards from The Rolling Stones look like a Golden Girl’. This guy lived it every day and there was never a break in between.”