Duran Duran's Andy Taylor|Living With Stage 4 Prostate Cancer ‘I STILL GET A LOT OUT OF LIFE'

FOUR YEARS AFTER HIS CANCER DIAGNOSIS, THE GUITARIST IS EMBRACING HIS CHANGED LIFE AS HE RAISES AWARENESS ABOUT THE DISEASEAND ENCOURAGES OTHERS TO GET TESTED

- DANIELA AVILA

Three days before Andy Taylor was supposed to fly out to join his former Duran Duran bandmates for their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last November, the guitarist realized he wasn't strong enough to make it. For weeks, in anticipation of the band's performance, Taylor had been practicing a medley of their biggest hits"Girls on Film," "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Ordinary World"-but only while sitting with his guitar in his lap. When he finally tried lifting his instrument onto his shoulder, it felt like dead-weight. "I didn't think I could stand up and play," says Taylor, 62. "To do the show, you need an extra gear. For the first time in my life, I didn't have it." 

So instead of getting on a plane to L.A., Taylor wrote a letter to his bandmates, which they read at the ceremony, telling them he would have to miss one of the highlights of his career because he was living with stage 4 prostate cancer-a fact he hadn't revealed publicly until that point: "I had to be honest with the band, who didn't know, and I didn't want fans to feel we were dodging the circumstance. Talking about it was a massive relief. When people don’t know you’re carrying this, every conversation you have, you’re acting.”